Brooklyn grapples with struggling hospitals and demand for healthcare

A new vision for Brooklyn health care was unveiled two years ago with much fanfare: Several struggling hospitals would merge with others, a state panel proposed, and less-expensive outpatients clinics would spring up in their place. Little of that has come to pass. Two hospitals—Long Island College Hospital, in Cobble Hill, and Interfaith Medical Center, in Bedford-Stuyvesant—are in danger of closing. Often lost in the rhetoric of the high-profile fights against shutting them is a little-discussed fact: There aren't enough clinics to replace those hospitals if they close, according to state officials, health-care experts, community groups and unions. [Subscription Required]