Brooklyn Judge Orders LICH to Reinstate Ambulance Service
The controversy over the closing down of Long Island College Hospital continues as Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Carolyn Demarest ordered ambulance service to be reinstated by Tuesday at the beleaguered health facility.
The State University of New York, which has been trying to close down the hospital since last February, has not said whether or not it will indeed open up the emergency room, despite the court-ordered deadline to do so by Tuesday.
“Do you know what you’re going to eat for lunch next Tuesday?” university spokesman Robert Bellafiore shot back when asked if ambulances return to the hospital by Tuesday. “That’s like saying that [New York Yankees owner George] Steinbrenner ordered the Yankees to win the World Series and so they will.”
This deadline is actually an extension of an old one ordered by Judge Demarest. The judge had originally been ordered to restore ambulance service and the entire ambulance department by August 26. When doctors informed Demarest that they were not well-enough staffed to open by that deadline, the judge extended it to 2:30pm on September 3rd.
Bellafiore declared that the state is “working in good faith with all the judges to settle all the issues surrounding Long Island College Hospital” but he would not say if any steps have actually been taken to open the emergency room and restore ambulance service at the hospital.
