Hospital services (photo: Governor's Office)

Hospital leaders are "disappointed" to see the state budget include new penalties for hospitals that fail to reopen shuttered psychiatric beds as part of a $1.4 billion plan to beef up New York's mental health care infrastructure.

Hospitals around the state have been struggling to bring over 1,000 psychiatric beds back online after closing them during the height of the pandemic due to severe staffing shortages and lack of funding.

The $229 billion budget passed by Governor Kathy

Gov. Hochul visits a hospital (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

Hospital administrators and state regulators say a severe workforce shortage has stymied efforts to restore a majority of the 1,050 inpatient psychiatric beds removed across the state during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Three years later, over 600 beds remain offline, according to the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), despite a $55 million infusion in last year's state budget and another $9 million to support the staffing pipeline.

The beds have become a focal point for Governor Kathy Hochul

Hospital staff (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York State has made little progress bringing 1,000 shuttered psychiatric beds back into service after they were closed during the covid pandemic, raising questions about a signature element of the mental health and public safety agendas of Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams.

In the April budget, Hochul and the Legislature allocated $27.5 million in state funding, matched by federal dollars, to restore the roughly 1,050 psychiatric beds shifted at the height of the pandemic when hospitals scrambled to make room for the

(l-r) City Council Members Linda Lee, Mercedes Narcisse, & Lynn Schulman

February 1, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: The New City Council Chairs for Public Health and Hospitals

Newly-elected New York City Council Members Linda Lee, Mercedes Narcisse, and Lynn Schulman are, respectively, the new chairs of the Council's Committees on Mental Health; Hospitals; and Health. The three lawmakers joined the show to discuss their backgrounds, vision, and plans for chairing these interdependent and overlapping committees that are charged

City Council Member Carlina Rivera (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

October 1, 2021 - Max Politics Podcast: City Council Member Carlina Rivera on Hospitals Oversight & More

City Council Member Carlina Rivera, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the Council's Committee on Hospitals, joined the show to discuss two recent hearings she chaired, including one on the city's covid vaccine program, her upcoming legislative priorities, her bid to become the next City Council Speaker, and more.

Listen to the

Local health care is key (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

When COVID-19 struck 15 months ago, where did those who became infected and seriously ill go? To their nearest hospital. 

Hospitals quickly became inundated with patients, and healthcare workers worked around the clock to save tens of thousands of lives. ICU beds filled up, and there was heavy demand on a limited number of ventilators.  

While all hospitals were impacted, it was New York’s most vulnerable communities – and the hospitals that serve them

Hospital workers (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

The current process to secure a COVID-19 vaccine is, to put it frankly, a logistical nightmare. Appointments have been cancelled by testing sites due to supply shortages, and vaccines were frequently being defrosted and then thrown out due to missed appointments and limited eligibility criteria. This was expected.

Contributing to the problems with vaccine distribution is the inaccessibility for seniors, especially in parts of eastern Queens. Successful vaccination

Health care workers during covid (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Last month, Governor Andrew Cuomo delivered remarks at Riverside Church on the inequities in the Trump administration's COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan. He admirably stated that we must prioritize fairness and equity. Communities like many in the Bronx that have suffered the most because of this virus must not be left behind. But that commitment to leaving no community behind must also be applied to addressing the underlying issues that led to disproportionately negative outcomes for

Mayor de Blasio at Elmhurst Hospital (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

A study recently released by New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Protection had a grim finding: as the pandemic overwhelmed the city last spring, 30% of patients hospitalized because of COVID-19 ended up dying. The findings confirmed the images New Yorkers grew accustomed to seeing — mobile morgues and patients struggling to survive in h...

Lincoln Hospital staff (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

As public health officials eye a second major swell of COVID-19 infections and an increase in hospitalizations, New York's hospital systems have begun to brace for another flood of patients. The state has even opened a field hospital on Staten Island in response to rising numbers, a dismal reminder of the devastation of the spring.

In the months since the height of the pandemic in the spring, New York's health care institutions have been making preparations to try to avoid the same chaos and

Supplies arrive at a hospital (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City is a "few weeks" away from securing a 90-day stockpile of medical personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, a project the mayor announced in April as part of a vow to be better prepared for a potential second wave of COVID-19 and other emergencies. But some elected officials and the New York nurses union are questioning the formula behind the 90-day supply benchmarks and whether the stockpile will be adequate for hospitals

Covid testing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

City Council members and public health professionals gathered over Zoom late last week to discuss how the city can better support public hospitals so that they’re prepared for a potential second wave of COVID-19, which experts say could overlap with the annual flu season and recent case upticks indicate may be looming.

The public hearing — held by the Council’s Committee on Hospitals and billed as an oversight hearing “Examining the City's Support of NYC Hospitals During the COVID-19 Pandemic” — covered issues

Mayor de Blasio visits Elmhurst Hospital (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

New York City and State governments’ lack of support for the city’s public hospitals left them underprepared in almost every way for the COVID-19 pandemic, even when the disease seemed likely to come to the city and despite warnings dating back to 2006 about the very conditions that would lead to an overwhelmed hospital system that became a real-life nightmare for New Yorkers, according to a preliminary report by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer

And when COVID-19

Health care lessons from the coronavirus crisis (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

The saying “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste” is cliché, but true. Out of the coronavirus pandemic can come positive change, but we must learn the right lessons. At the peak of the COVID-19 crisis in New York some hospitals were overwhelmed – short of personnel, ICU beds, ventilators and PPE. But that does not mean, as some have argued, that more permanent

Council Member Costa Constantinides (photo: New York City Council)

The whole thing happened so fast. One minute my son and I are playing video games and the next he and my wife, who struggles with diabetes and is in renal failure, rush out the door to her mother’s apartment. So much has changed for my family and our community in the weeks since my fever first hit 102 degrees. However, throughout this experience, one thing remains shockingly clear: we need more hospitals in Queens and to reimagine how people access health care in the World’s

Manhattan Psychiatric Center, Wards Island (photo: @nicknormal via Flickr)

Ten people have died of coronavirus and another 193 have tested positive among the nearly 3,500 residents living in state-run inpatient psychiatric facilities, according to officials, making them one of the hardest hit institutional settings per capita in New York State. Another 283 staff that work at the state's 23 centers have tested positive for COVID-19, which has killed well over 13,000 people across the state.

After inquiries, the information was provided to Gotham Gazette on

Mayor de Blasio at a supportive housing site (photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayor's Office)

As our great city faces its most challenging crisis in the past 100 years, it has revealed to all of us how the city has radically changed in the past few decades.

The virus has now put a spotlight on the critical shortage of hospital beds and medical equipment like ventilators. In fact New York City ICU bed capacity ranks in the bottom quarter nationally. If you have lived in the city for over 40 years, as I have, you likely recall how many hospitals have

Council Member Rivera visits a hospital (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

April 08, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: City Council Member Carlina Rivera on Hospital Oversight Amid Coronavirus

City Council Member Carlina Rivera, chair of the Council's hospitals committee, joined the show to discuss her oversight of the city's response to the

Mayor de Blasio, a ventilator, and two doctors (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

As government officials anticipate a wave of coronavirus patients overwhelming the New York City hospital system within days or weeks, the question of how racial disparities in health care will impact who dies of COVID-19 and the disaster's long-term public health fallout loom large and, as yet, unaddressed.

Differences in access to quality care for African-Americans and other people of color are ...

Gov. Cuomo gives dire warnings about hospital capacity (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

City and state officials have been saying for over a week that as the spread of coronavirus continues New York's hospitals will not be able to provide life-saving treatment for everyone who needs it. One of the most immediate needs is ventilators, which are required to save the most critical COVID-19 patients and are already in short supply in New York City hospitals. With the note of alarm reaching a fever pitch in recent days, public health officials have not made

rendering of proposed Leonx Hill Hospital expansion

Northwell Health is proposing an unprecedented, $2.5 billion expansion of Lenox Hill Hospital that includes construction and sale of a 490-foot condo tower to help finance a new 520-foot hospital tower and other massive new structures. This pitch has already generated much controversy, as residents of the Lenox Hill neighborhood and surrounding communities are ...

What's The [Data] Point? Episode 71 -- 1,112,975, with Dr. Mitchell Katz, president of NYC Health + Hospitals [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

Dr. Mitchell Katz is in charge of the city's public hospital system, which includes 11 hospitals and dozens of other facilities

(photo: @nynurses)

During one night shift at the children’s hospital where she worked as a nurse, Nicolette Mabeza‘s unit filled up with intubated children. She and the other nurses were frantic.

“It was just the entire floor running around,” said Mabeza, who worked in the intensive care unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Washington Heights. “Some nurses had two intubated patients and they weren’t even right next to each other.”

Nurses stretched to the limit by understaffing would regularly cry on the job, she

Cuomo & Vital Brooklyn (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

In March of 2017, Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled what he described as a groundbreaking initiative to “bring health and wellness to one of the most disadvantaged parts of the state.” That place was Central Brooklyn, where roubling health indicators of all types plague residents, from diabetes rates to poverty levels to inadequate

Council Member Rivera, one of the authors (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

Even in an era of relentless attack on health care by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress, New York City is continuing to reap enormous benefits from the Affordable Care Act. This year alone another 80,000 city residents enrolled in health coverage through our state’s Obamacare exchange.

But a huge number are still being left behind: an estimated 962,000 adults in the five boroughs remain uninsured. These New Yorkers -- many of whom are