A state judge has blocked the state from emptying out the broke Long Island College Hospital.
Appellate Division Judge Robert Miller ordered SUNY Downstate, which operates LICH, to “maintain the level of service” that existed as of Friday at 4 p.m.
The ruling was a “clear vindication for the community,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who had sued in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Friday to block Downstate from closing the hospital.
Earlier in the week, Downstate had asked the Appellate Division to allow its closure plans to continue, but Miller disagreed — and de Blasio cheered.
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“There is no gray area” in the verdict, de Blasio added.
Still, Bellafiore said LICH would follow the judge’s order.
“As a practical matter, operations at LICH will go virtually unchanged. We already weren’t admitting patients from the ER and already were trying not to schedule elective procedures,” Bellafiore said.
The Hicks St. facility stopped accepting ambulances last month, and barred new patients from its emergency, intensive care, and surgical units.
There were only 11 patients assigned to hospital beds in the 250-bed complex as of Sunday night.
The court win for the opponents of the closure is just the latest twist in the seventh-month legal battle over LICH’s future.
Downstate officials announced the decision to close the 155-year-old facility in January. But doctors and nurses filed a lawsuit slowing down the timetable.
The state Department of Health is expected to join the fray later in the week, when de Blasio said he will add the agency to his suit, charging it approved emptying out the hospital without having a mandatory 90-day waiting period.
“SUNY has trouble understanding that the judicial system rules the day,” de Blasio said.