Maimonides Hospital’s Worst Day

Is it possible that the medical services that Maimonides Medical Center provides the community can get worse? With Maimonides’ executive board members throwing in the towel, so to speak, observers expect the medical care at the hospital in the heart of Borough Park to plummet as the hospital is taken over by NYC Health + Hospitals, which runs hospitals that dispense the worst care in the city, and are known as institutions that people with health issues do their best to avoid.

In a write up on Maimonides in the New York Times last year, it was reported that of the 157 hospitals in New York State, Maimonides ranked 157. The healthcare Maimonides, formerly known as Bnei Zion many years ago, once dispensed at a mediocre level, is expected to take a nosedive with the takeover. Senior doctors, many of whom were considered the great attraction of the hospital, are now jumping ship and looking to sign with more successful and better-rated institutions in the state.

A senior doctor, who has been affiliated with Maimonides for decades, said the other day that the title of this piece should be, “Corruption and Incompetence.” The doctor, who requested anonymity because they are still with the hospital, said that CEO Kenneth Gibbs, who has been at the hospital since 2016, has led the hospital to the bottom of the ratings for medical institutions, and has passed millions of dollars around to board members to persuade them to vote with him and turn Maimonides into a city hospital.

One of the leaders of the movement to keep Maimonides private was well-known community activist, Mendy Reiner, the founder and director of Renewal. He said that for a while the possibility existed to turn Maimonides into a viable medical center, but now that opportunity is gone.

“There was a period when it was possible that Northwell Health, a large healthcare network in the state that runs successful hospitals, would take over operations at Maimonides and rebuild the ailing hospital,” said Reiner. In fact, a deal was struck years ago with then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, who persuaded Northwell to “lend” Maimonides $150 million so the Brooklyn-based medical center could crawl its way out of extreme debt.

In the interim, Cuomo was forced to resign and his replacement, Kathy Hochul, did not have the connections or influence that Cuomo had, and the deal with Northwell fell apart.

Now that the city is taking over the hospital, it means that it will become almost completely a Medicaid institution with lower-paid doctors and nurses, which translates to a situation where a hospital that was already bad will no doubt deteriorate. City-owned hospitals, unlike private ones, do not pay overtime to employees, so you can guess who will be attracted to work under these conditions.

A fundraiser for Maimonides as well as two high-level executives told us that people who used to donate to Maimonides are now refusing to contribute. “Why do they need money from us now that it’s being run by the city?” one executive quipped.

Considering that there are more than 200,000 frum Jews living within walking distance of Maimonides, the hope and dream was to turn it into a top-tier medical institution; instead, it looks like it’s going to be headed in the opposite direction.

One community member said that he was involved in an effort to get Hatzalah to stop bringing cases to the Maimonides Emergency Room, which he said was a disaster with long waits, understaffing, and not in the patients’ best interest.

Mitch Katz was recently reappointed by Mayor Mamdani as the head of HHC, which means that he must deal with Maimonides under that burdensome rubric. Since the Covid pandemic, healthcare has become king throughout the U.S., and especially here in New York. Now, with the city and its reputation for mismanagement, it looks as though the days of being king are over and healthcare in Borough Park and the surrounding area will look more like the joker. 

Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.