The state health department has rejected plans for closing Lower Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Beth Israel as “incomplete,” sending hospital leaders back to the drawing board.
The decision comes after both the health department and a state Supreme Court judge repeatedly ordered the hospital to stop shutting down services without permission in recent months.
Loren Riegelhaupt, a spokesperson for Beth Israel, said the hospital will resubmit its closure plan. But a coalition of a dozen elected officials representing Manhattan, including U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, called the health department’s decision a “major win for our community” in a joint statement on Wednesday.
“While this is not an outright rejection of the plan, it brings more accountability to one of the biggest health systems in New York,” the elected officials said. “We will continue working to protect health care access for over 400,000 New Yorkers in Lower Manhattan.”
Beth Israel officials submitted their plan to close the hospital for state approval last fall. They said the hospital had to shut down because of massive financial losses and a declining patient census.
But the submission didn’t sufficiently prove either of those assertions, state health officials wrote in a letter to Beth Israel President Elizabeth Sellman on Tuesday. The closure plan also didn’t provide evidence that the hospital had properly notified and received feedback from the community and local elected officials, as state law requires according to the health department.
Health officials ordered Beth Israel to work with other nearby hospitals to confirm there would still be sufficient emergency medical capacity following the closure.
A community coalition suing Beth Israel to stop the closure filed the health department letter as evidence in the case on Wednesday.
“We are in receipt of [the health department’s] response to our proposed closure plan and look forward to working with them in providing the supplemental…
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