Red Hook StarªRevue
The
SOUTH BROOKLYN’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
JUNE 2013
FREE
LICH UNRAVELING CONTINUES
D
by Kimberly Gail Price
octors’
con-
tracts are set to expire at the
end
of
this month, hospital staff’s WARN notices are still pending, and now SUNY DMC is pulling the plug on LICH’s residency program – or as one doctor called it, the “backbone” of the hospital. Meanwhile, the lawsuit filed by Long Island College Hospital (LICH) against State University of New York Downstate Medical Center (SUNY) has been postponed indefinitely. And SUNY’s new Sustainability Plan submitted to the state on June 1 excludes LICH almost entirely - except for the dollar sign on their property value. Despite
court
ordered
restriction,
SUNY is continuing to unravel the threads holding LICH together. By withdrawing their closure plan, they have been able to quietly cease operations at LICH. They have delayed LICH’s lawsuit by changing attorneys in the eleventh hour, claiming a “conflict of interest,” pushing the date beyond the original closure date of June 18. Most crippling of all, they have recently taken action of removing every resident doctor away from LICH. Dr. John Romanelli calls LICH the proverbial “carcass picked apart for assets and then left to die.” In 1860, two years after the hospital was opened, LICH introduced the idea of bringing medical training to bedsides. LICH was the first medical institution in the world to implement this sort of training. Today, the program has been instituted worldwide. After completion of medical school, every future doctor must complete and be certified through a residency program similar to LICH. Although residency students are still under the authority of the doctors they work side by side with, they are capable of diagnosing and treating a patient, just as a doctor does. Residents are paid
by the hospital they train with; the hospital is also paid by the state to train them. LICH currently has 42 resident doctors who not only are receiving training to practice medicine in the future, A hospital directory posted on a wall at LICH. but they are also valuable and create a much greater workload for assistance to doctors by filling in gaps. attending doctors. They take on extra patients and provide Residents ordered out of hospital extra hands for a certified doctor, allowOn June 23, 2013, the very last resiing more patients to be cared for than dency class of LICH finishes the proa standalone doctor. “They are an exgram and graduates. On June 30, 2013, tension of the attending medical staff,” SUNY has mandated that the residents Dr. Romanelli explains. “The residents who have yet to complete their program help manage the patients on the hospiat LICH be moved back to the SUNY tal wards with the attending staff supercampuses and finish training at UHB. vision. Without them, LICH would be less profitable, provide less patient care (continued on page 3)
Superfund Project moves on - a PRIMER L by George Fiala
ast December the EPA published their proposed plan for remediation of the Gowanus Canal. A public comment period lasted through April 27th. For the next few months the EPA team will evaluate the comments and by the end of the summer, they will issue a formal response. The EPA has received approximately 1,400 comments. This does not count names signed to petitions. All of the points raised by the commenters will be collated and responded to. The questions and the responses will be posted on the EPA website. Red Hook will be looking specifically at (continued on page 6)
The look of the Gowanus CAG - taken at a recent monthly meeting which took place in Wyckoff Gardens (photo by George Fiala)
Also in this issue:
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