Mount Sinai To Hold Public Forum On Beth Israel Hospital Closure

NEW YORK CITY — Mount Sinai Health System is hosting a public forum this week on their previously announced plans to close one of the last remaining hospitals downtown, the nearly 700-bed and over 100-year-old Beth Israel Hospital.

At the end of October, Mount Sinai officials notified state hospital regulators — who must sign off on their plans — of their request to shutter the hospital.

"The forum will be led by Mount Sinai Beth Israel executives who will discuss the plans for Downtown, the timeline on closure, and how Mount Sinai will continue to address the needs of the community now and in the future," a flyer announcing the Tuesday night meeting at Baruch College reads.

Following the presentation, there will be a public Q & A session.

Mount Sinai's announcement to close Beth Israel stunned both residents and health care experts alike, with one nurse telling the New York Times that the only certain outcome of this plan will be death, since lower Manhattan is already so underserved and emergency response times are already high.

“People will likely die as a result,” Sharlene Waylon, a nurse who worked at Beth Israel for over 40 years told the Times.

An unnamed community coalition has sent out an email in an effort to mobilize residents to turn out for the meeting and express their objections.

The email claims that Beth Israel's financial situation, an operating loss that hospital officials said will reach $150 million a year, is a "deliberate" pretext to close the hospital.

State Assembly Member Harvey Epstein wondered to the Times in November if the move was "just a real estate grab for them."

Mount Sinai claims that the financial losses are due to the hospital running at a small fraction of its operational capacity.

"The inescapable trend in health care, both in New York and across the nation, is that care is moving away from large inpatient facilities towards more flexible community-based ambulatory care settings," the October letter to regulators reads.

Emergency visits are down over 40 percent from 2012, the letter states, and acute care discharges are down by almost 73 percent from 2012.

The same letter shows that since 2020, occupancy has increased by nearly five percent.

Tuesday's public meeting will be held from 6-8 p.m. inside Baruch College's Engleman Hall, at 55 Lexington Avenue.