Newsroom

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 26, 2016

Statement by DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido on de Blasio administration report on NYC Health + Hospitals

“We applaud Mayor de Blasio for his ongoing commitment to provide and improve vital services for all who live in our city. Clearly, no service is more vital than health care – and no public health-care system has been more diligent than Health + Hospitals.

It is important to note that the Mayor’s plan excludes facility closures and layoffs and does not penalize the hardworking men and women who help provide a safety net of care to tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

We believe that the system is long overdue for the comprehensive re-training that is necessary to ease the transition of some facilities from hospitals to primary care, and expect to work closely with Health + Hospitals to ensure this happens smoothly and effectively.

But let’s not lose sight of the following:

• Our public health-care system (and the men and women who work within it) does not turn anyone away for lack of money, health insurance, or citizenship.
• When the city is faced with the prospect of a health crisis, such as Ebola or Zika, it is our public health-care system that vigilantly confronts it.
• Purely political reasons have prevented Health + Hospitals from receiving its fair share of the $1 billion in federal and state that make up what is known as the “charity care pool.” Currently, only $139 million is available for public hospitals and of that, only $96 million goes to Health + Hospitals. Meanwhile, private hospitals with large surpluses continue to receive the lion’s share of the charity care pool. District Council 37 will continue to work aggressively to bring this issue to forefront and to fight for fair funding for Health + Hospitals.

Until we are able to ensure the proper funding to Health + Hospitals, which provides the most care to the city’s most vulnerable populations, we are not going to be able to maintain a modern, vital system of health care for the families of this city.