Amid fight for Brooklyn hospital properties, a new plan is aired

Aim to fill hospital boards with locals, patients and employees

Interfaith Medical Center
Interfaith Medical Center

Since negotiations regarding what to do with failing Brooklyn hospitals has been “dysfunctional” lately — including bidding by real estate developers for some of the properties at those hospitals — a group of Brooklynites has proposed a dramatic change of course.

The plan? Replacing all the boards of directors at the borough’s hospitals, including the one at Interfaith Medical Center, with a cooperative-based health care system.

The new board for each hospital would be made up of members of the community, including patients and employees, according to DNAInfo. The community advisory board for Interfaith and nursing union officials have confirmed the plan, which comes on the heels of a bankruptcy court payment of $7.5 million to Interfaith.

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“The current healthcare system isn’t working for our communities,” the proposal read, as reported by DNAInfo. “Decisions about how resources are allocated and what kinds of services we get are made on the basis of costs and revenues. We have no direct say in these decisions.”

If allowed, hospitals would have interim leaders running operations until a board was selected. The co-op would work similarly to food, worker and apartment co-ops elsewhere in the city. [DNAinfo]Angela Hunt