They fear the hospital is now just days away from closing despite a long battle to save it. Protestors stormed the doors of the Long Island College Hospital Thursday afternoon, trying to meet with administrators they say have violated a court order that prevents them from pulling the plug on the ailing hospital.
"SUNY is not giving any opportunity to the community to save this hospital," said Bill DeBlasio, NYC mayoral candidate.
The controversy has been swirling for months after SUNY's takeover of the hospital in 2011, and stated intention to resell the land potentially to a developer who would shut the hospital down. Last month, a Brooklyn judge signed an order preventing SUNY from closing LICH.
"They want to close the hospital without saying they closed the hospital," said Dr. Alice Gainer, LICH.
But this morning, Dr. Alice Gainer, who runs the neonatal unit, says her assistant was told to transfer patients to other hospitals, by the end of the week.
"The social worker came up to him and told him she was told by the administrators, whoever that is, that we have to transfer all the patients in the hospital," Dr. Gainer said.
Last week public advocate Bill DeBlasio, who's running for mayor, got himself arrested while protesting a potential closure. Thursday, he was back with other elected officials to lead this rally, but they didn't get far.
"We wanted to talk to people in charge of the hospital, unfortunately no one here was willing to engage in any conversation with us," said NY State Senator Dan Squadron.
