The state Department of Health has deemed Mount Sinai’s closure plan for Beth Israel incomplete, thrusting the future of the hospital into limbo again.
Department leaders wrote that the health system’s original closure plan submitted late last year lacks information about why the closure is necessary and how Mount Sinai communicated its plans to the surrounding community, according to a letter sent to Beth Israel president Elizabeth Sellman on Tuesday. The department must approve the new plan for Mount Sinai to move forward with closing Beth Israel’s 16th Street campus.
Loren Riegelhaupt, a spokesman for Mount Sinai, said the health system has received the letter and is working on a new plan with the requested information.
The new plan must include how Sinai discussed the potential closure with other local hospitals and show how it is working with other providers to make sure patients can still access emergency medical services. The health system must also provide more information on how it communicated closure plans to elected officials and organizations that represent Beth Israel employees, wrote Dr. Douglas Fish, the acting deputy commissioner of the department’s office of primary care and health systems management.
Furthermore, he wrote, Mount Sinai must attach the last three years of audited financial statements for Beth Israel and the whole health system. While Mount Sinai representatives claim that Beth Israel needs to shut down due to insurmountable financial losses, the department needs more evidence of how the hospital is pulling down the health system’s finances, Fish wrote.
Mount Sinai’s deadline to submit a new plan is unclear from the letter, but the additional step could push back the intended closure date of July 12. The document is the latest filing in a lawsuit against Beth Israel and the health department which aims to stop the looming closure.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Jacqueline Neber , 2024-04-04 01:24:44
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