NY State Health Department Hits Mt. Sinai With Cease-and-Desist Over Beth Israel Closure
In a pointed cease-and-desist letter, NY’s Department of Health ordered Mt. Sinai to stop closing Beth Israel’s “beds and services without approval.” Fines of $2,000 will be levied for each day that Mt. Sinai continues to shut down services, with a possible court order on the horizon.
| 30 Dec 2023 | 01:08
Mt. Sinai’s Beth Israel campus. The hospital branch’s closure may now be on hold after NY’s Department of Health sent the hospital network a Dec. 21 cease-and-desist letter, which condemned their failure to obtain regulatory approval. (
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City Councilmembers Keith Powers and Carlina Rivera getting ready for a Dec. 14 rally outside Beth Israel, where they protested Mt. Sinai shuttering the branch’s facilities. (
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New York’s state Department of Health is putting the brakes on Mt. Sinai’s plans to close Beth Israel with a Dec. 21 cease-and-desist letter. The agency demanded that the healthcare network immediately stop shuttering services and beds at the E. 16th St. hospital, and would face daily fines upon failing to do so. A court order could follow given further noncompliance.
The department specifically cited Mt. Sinai’s failure to obtain adequate prior approval for the closure.
Stephanie Schulman, the director of the department’s Division of Hospitals and Diagnostic & Treatment Centers and the author of the letter, directly quoted from a section of the New York Codes that Mt. Sinai has apparently violated: “No medical facility shall discontinue operation or surrender its operating certificate unless 90 days’ notice of its intention to do so is given to the commissioner and his written approval obtained.” She addressed the missive to Mount Sinai CEO Elizabeth Sellman.
The health agency clarified that while it had received an initial closure plan from Mt. Sinai on Oct. 25, a Nov. 17 addendum to the plan proclaimed that “operations would be closing more quickly than anticipated,” with “decreased patient utilization” and staffing shortages listed as a rationale.
The state was not receptive to this quicker wind-down. Additionally, the Department of Health faulted Mt. Sinai for not obtaining a required “certificate of need” (CON) from them, which must be issued before any beds can be decertified.
Mount Sinai has claimed that Beth Israel has lost over $1 billion in the past decade, and that it is on target to end up $150 million further in the red this year. The hospital maintains over 700 beds, which would slowly be stripped from patients before a final shutdown.
Downtown Manhattanites have railed against Beth Israel’s closure, drawing broad support from elected officials in the process. Most recently, a number of politicians attended a Dec. 14 rally against the closure outside the hospital. Critics have noted that if Beth Israel were shuttered, only one major hospital–a branch of NewYork-Presbyterian on William St.–would remain available to patients south of 23rd St.
Keith Powers, the City Council’s Majority Leader and a fervent opponent of the closure (which would affect his district), hailed the cease-and-desist as “major news” in a social media post. “Our community is fighting hard to prevent this misguided closure - and we’re winning.”
Congressman Jerry Nadler, whose district includes the neighborhood encompassing Beth Israel, told his X.com (formerly Twitter) followers that the letter was “great news.”
Harvey Epstein, a member of the State Assembly and a Beth Israel fan himself, similarly hailed the closure in a statement. He alluded to meetings he had attended with the Department of Health on the matter, where he and his political allies apparently brought up concerns over Mt. Sinai’s “premature actions to close services and beds.” It’s clear that such advocacy has borne fruit for Rep. Epstein.
Loren Riegelhaupt, a spokesperson for Mt. Sinai, told Straus News that the hospital network had “received the letter and are reviewing it. As we have always said, the health and safety of our patients are - and must remain our top priorities.”