SUNY Downstate Well being Sciences College, Brooklyn.
Picture courtesy SUNY Downstate Well being Sciences College
SUNY Downstate is an important Brooklyn establishment – it’s an important engine to coaching the subsequent era of various, world-class medical professionals and scientists for New York State, delivering high quality well being care providers for New Yorkers, and addressing well being disparities in Central Brooklyn.
Nevertheless, at this level final yr, SUNY Downstate’s hospital was working a $100 million annual deficit and was susceptible to being unable to function with out further funding, whereas contending with a hospital facility in disrepair and susceptible to main crises.
Following a long time of disinvestment, Governor Hochul and the Legislature struck an unprecedented settlement throughout price range negotiations earlier this yr to assist stabilize Downstate by offering $300 million in historic capital funding and allocating $100 million to quickly cowl the deficit whereas a long-term resolution for a stronger Downstate may very well be developed.
Additional, to chart that new, long-term path ahead, negotiations additionally established a brand new Group Advisory Board tasked with producing suggestions that symbolize an affordable, scalable and fiscally accountable plan for the monetary well being, viability and sustainability of SUNY Downstate’s Hospital, and outlining as much as $750 million of capital spending to satisfy that objective.
Final month, Governor Hochul introduced appointees to the SUNY Downstate Group Advisory Board. SUNY is deeply dedicated to a robust future for Downstate, and I’m proud to serve on the Advisory Board alongside group, well being, and price range leaders – this can be a important second for the Downstate group, and essentially the most essential work stays forward of us.
Because the Advisory Board strikes ahead it is going to be important to leverage the perfect up to date insights about offering high quality care to fastidiously analyze the situation of the deteriorating constructing constructed within the Sixties, together with important techniques (heating/air flow/air-con, plumbing, electrical, and so on.) and plan for the perfect strategic use of the as much as $750 million in capital, whereas figuring out the right combination of financially sustainable ambulatory and inpatient providers – within the context of the providers provided at different native hospitals (together with Kings County proper throughout the road) – to get the perfect well being outcomes for the group.
The healthcare wants of Brooklyn residents must be our North Star. Our objective must be the perfect well being outcomes for the group, in keeping with the parameters outlined within the legislation, and proposals that replicate group priorities, providers provided within the area, and continuation of the coaching of our various healthcare workforce that tends to remain and serve Brooklyn.
In my visits to Downstate, I’ve been moved by the dedication of the school and workers, gratified by the promise of the scholars, and dismayed by the challenges to the bodily plant. The missions of Downstate –from educating various and devoted medical doctors and medical professionals to treating the sick and wounded– are so vital that failing to map and observe a path to a secure and profitable future will not be an possibility.
I’ve been gratified to get to know passionate professors, resembling one clinician and assistant professor of pediatrics, who graduated from our Hispanic Management Institute final yr. An excellent physician, she’s additionally a rare mentor and trainer to future well being professionals, and a rising chief for the Downstate group.
College students select Downstate exactly as a result of they wish to serve a mixture of sufferers that features those that are economically susceptible sufferers, bilingual sufferers, and sufferers impacted by city air pollution, violent crime, and psychological well being stressors. One pupil I met immigrated to the US from Ghana, coming to New York in 2018 together with her mother and father and 4 siblings. An Instructional Alternative Program pupil at Binghamton, she all the time knew she needed to be a well being skilled, and jumped on the likelihood to be a part of Downstate’s pre-med EOP program.
Downstate isn’t just an establishment, it’s a group of leaders and we should guarantee a path ahead that allows leaders like these to proceed to flourish.
After years of economic instability, I look ahead to working with the opposite members of the Advisory Board over the approaching months to take heed to the group and our stakeholders to create a plan for a stronger Downstate that meets the Advisory Board’s statutory cost. New York’s healthcare workforce and Central Brooklyn’s well being outcomes depend upon it.
