PUBLISHED : MON, 14 APR 2014, 08:59 PM
UPDATED : TUES, 15 APR 2014, 11:15 AM
Before and after some New York hospital closings, North Shore-LIJ successfully lobbied for state grants to fund its expansion plans.
Here's some intrigue, which the corrupt Moreland Commission should have investigated, about the granting of state money and an anti-trust loophole to a politically-connected ally of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's.
After three hospitals closed in New York City, North Shore-LIJ scored almost $20 million in state grants to help it make further inroads into the Manhattan and Queens hospital markets. The grants were backdoor funding that the state Department of Health provided existing healthcare facilities to temporarily expand their capacity in order for the state to facilitate wholesale hospital closures sought first by the Berger Commission and later by the Medicaid Redesign Team.
North Shore-LIJ received another $10 million grant after Hurricane Sandy, further demonstrating how politically astute the Long Island hospital chain has become in raking in grant money from hospital closings and natural disasters.
- RELATED : As part of the Berger Commission drive to close St. John's Queens Hospital and Mary Immaculate Hospital, the state Department of Health made a $3.5 million grant to North Shore-LIJ to "expand inpatient capacity and emergency room services at its Forest Hills and Franklin sites." (NYS Department of Health)
- RELATED : North Shore-LIJ opened an urgent care center in Rego Park, Queens, in 2010, following the 2009 Berger Commission bankruptcy and closures of St. John’s Queens Hospital and Mary Immaculate Hospital. The expansion of North Shore-LIJ into New York City was paid for by a $5.3 million grant from the state Department of Health. (The New York Post)
- RELATED : The state awarded a $9.4 million grant last spring to Lenox Hill Hospital/North Shore-LIJ to operate an urgent care center in Greenwich Village. (North Shore-LIJ will open an urgent care-center on West 20th Street * The Wall Street Journal)
- RELATED : Sixteen months after the North Shore-LIJ opened an urgent care center in Manhattan after St. Vincent’s Hospital closed, the system has closed the urgent center due to a lack of use, pocketing the $9.4 million grant. (North Shore-LIJ closes NYC urgent care center near St. Vincent's Hospital * Long Island Business News)
- RELATED : State officials are sparring over a bill that would allow Nassau Health Care Corp. join with North Shore-LIJ with blanket immunity from antitrust laws. (Schneiderman raises antitrust concerns over NuHealth/North Shore-LIJ partnership * Newsday)
- RELATED : Despite antitrust objections by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law a bill that allows Nassau Health Care Corp. to collaborate with North Shore-LIJ with blanket antitrust immunity. (Despite antitrust objections, Cuomo approves NuHealth/North Shore-LIJ partnership * Newsday)
Whether it wants to either receive grant money to help fuel its expansion plans, lobby for blanket antitrust immunity to provide cover for its expansion plans, or to get a cut from grant money related to Hurricane Sandy as new funding streams, North Shore-LIJ gets exactly what it wants.
Helping North Shore-LIJ navigate through the sleazy swamp of corrupt Albany grant-making politics is North Shore-LIJ CEO Michael Dowling, who served as a co-chair on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team effort to close hospitals and make scorched earth austerity cuts to healthcare. In 2010, North Shore-LIJ CEO Dowling was paid an astronomical $2.9 million in compensation, even though the hospital system is set up as a non-profit, yeah right.
In the above YouTube video recorded in 2011, Mr. Dowling described to community activist Jim Fouratt how the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital donated for free valuable property that North Shore-LIJ plans to use for an urgent care center on Seventh Avenue South. No word yet on how many millions in state grants were received by North Shore-LIJ in respect of this new iteration of an urgent care center, which is set to open this year.
