Brooklyn’s SUNY Downstate hospital saved from closure until at least 2025

State lawmakers have rejected New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to shutter the financially struggling SUNY Downstate hospital in Brooklyn and replace it with an outpatient clinic.

Instead, they negotiated a deal with the governor to establish a community advisory board to determine the hospital’s future.

“We can do better,” Hochul said Friday morning, shortly after lawmakers released details of the state health budget that omitted her proposed funding for the hospital closure and transition plan. “Central Brooklyn needs better health care outcomes, they need better health care facilities and how we can do that is an open question right now.”

The budget requires the advisory board to issue a report with recommendations for the hospital on April 1, 2025, and bars state officials from making decisions on any proposed reductions of inpatient services before then.

Hochul initially sought to include $100 million in the budget to cover hospital operating costs in the short term and $300 million for the proposed outpatient clinic. The final budget includes the same amount of funding for Downstate, but the $300 million in capital dollars will now be set aside until after the advisory board makes its recommendations, said Katy Zielinski, a spokesperson for Hochul.

The initial closure proposal — billed by Hochul as a “transformation” — was unveiled in January at the start of the budget session. Some lawmakers said during early budget hearings that they felt blindsided and ill-equipped to make a decision about the hospital’s future by the time this year’s budget was due on April 1. Hochul and lawmakers missed that deadline, but ultimately reached an agreement this week.

Meanwhile, union reps, local clergy and other advocates have spoken out against the plan, saying that closing a hospital in a largely Black neighborhood could make existing health care disparities in Brooklyn worse.

“Obviously, things done in haste without input from the community don’t always produce the best outcome for the community,” state Assemblymember Brian Cunningham told Gothamist last week. “We just want to make sure that we have the right people at the table having the right conversations.”

The budget borrowed language from legislation Cunningham introduced last month to establish a commission on SUNY Downstate. But some of the guardrails Cunningham sought in his bill were left out of the budget, giving the commission more leeway to diminish services at Downstate if it sees fit. Cunningham’s bill would have required the advisory board to avoid diminishing any “core specialty” services at the hospital, including transplant care, emergency services and level II trauma care.

Most of the members of the advisory board have yet to be determined. The budget only specifies that it will include SUNY Chancellor John King Jr., who has advocated for the closure plan, along with a union representative and several other members who will be appointed by the governor and Legislature.

In recent months, Brooklyn clergy, Downstate workers, local NAACP reps and other activists have held multiple rallies against the closure plan. They sent Hochul a letter last month urging more community engagement.

On Thursday evening, just before the state health budget language was finalized, the Lenox Road Baptist Church in Brooklyn held a prayer meeting where various clergy preached to packed pews for an hour about the importance of Downstate, asking God to protect the hospital. NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and a representative for U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office were also in attendance.

“May we find solutions that prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable amongst us and address the health disparities that threaten to drown us,” Pastor James Richmond preached after leading a rendition of “We Shall Overcome.”

After the prayer session, attendees marched to the hospital, with Pastor Louis Straker Jr. leading chants of “Brooklyn needs Downstate!”

King, SUNY’s chancellor, has been adamant over the past few months that Downstate must eliminate emergency and inpatient care, given that the hospital is losing about $100 million per year, and the potential cost of renovating the hospital building, which he says is in disrepair.

But in a statement Friday, King said the newly established advisory board will be “an invaluable partner” in coming up with a “fiscally responsible” plan for the hospital.

“SUNY is proud of our role in finding a solution to the crisis Downstate faces after decades of disinvestment, and working with our partners in government and the community to chart a better path forward,” King added.

King said in February he hoped to develop housing on the hospital campus, and said Downstate would be able to transfer its inpatient services to Kings County hospital across the street and Maimonides in Borough Park. He added that the hospital was only filling about 150 beds each day, even though it was certified for 350.

But representatives for Maimonides and Kings County made it clear at the time there were no set plans worked out yet to take on Downstate’s services or patients. Dr. Mitchell Katz, the president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, which runs Kings County, even raised concerns at a public meeting in February that Kings County was already “busier than it’s ever been.”