SUNY president to recommend closure of Long Island hospital

Hospital staff, elected officials and community members rallied last month to try to save Long Island College Hospital. It was a fight they've waged before. But now, it appears likely that the 150-year-old Cobble Hill medical institution known as LICH will close for good. "It was my assessment that looking at Long Island College Hospital, that we were losing so much money that it was going to damage the system itself," said Dr. John Williams, president of SUNY Downstate. "So I had to make a very tough decision." "If you look at my budget, 75 percent of my budget goes to payroll and benefits," he said. "That means you operate a hospital on 25 percent. That's a very, very difficult thing to do."