KEEP KINGSBROOK JEWISH MEDICAL CENTER OPEN DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC!

Please Stand With Us Against Hospital Closures and Cuts!

During the first quarter of 2020, we saw how a virus came into our neighborhoods and ravaged the vulnerable populations as well as the healthcare system. We watched as the novel virus magnified the disparities and inequalities in our healthcare system with bodies mounted in hospitals across Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx mostly due to controllable circumstances.

Gov. Cuomo is, at the moment, attempting to quietly and quickly close a safety net hospital in Brooklyn in the middle of a pandemic – Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in East Flatbush. We are trying to shine some light to raise public awareness and scrutiny on this situation.

The first wave of the pandemic devastated Brooklyn, which was already suffering from massive racial healthcare inequalities. Currently Brooklyn and Queens have 1.8 hospital beds per 1,000 residents (compared to Manhattan’s over 5 beds per 1,000). In one of the riches cities in the world, the first wave of the pandemic completely overwhelmed the existing healthcare infrastructure in Central Brooklyn, which has long suffered from cruel healthcare budget cuts, largely implemented through cuts in Medicaid from the State.

The New York Times quoted Kingsbrook nurse, Feyoneisha McGrath, on her experience at the height of the first wave of the pandemic. Like other hospitals in Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens, she reported painfully dire patient to nurse ratios of 20 to 1 in the emergency room. “We could not care for the number of patients we had. I worked 16 hour a day, and then I got in my cat and cried.”

By closing this hospital before the second wave of the pandemic, which has the possibility of being worse than the first, Cuomo is working to ensure that even more Black Brooklynites will die.