As the battle over the ultimate disposition of Long Island College Hospital drags on, another Brooklyn hospital will remain open.
Bedford-Stuyvesant’s beleaguered Interfaith Medical Center emerged from bankruptcy on Tuesday.
The exit ended a nearly two-year battle to keep the health-care facility open and financially in the black.
The hospital’s proposed restructuring plan, which will swap out senior management with a new state-mandated management team in exchange for state funding to keep interfaith open, was approved by a federal bankruptcy judge on Monday. The hospital officially announced the deal Tuesday.
“We set out to save Interfaith Medical Center, and today I am enormously proud to say that it is a new day for Interfaith Medical Center and the people of Brooklyn,” Diane Porter, Interfaith board member and IM Foundation president, said in a statement to DNAinfo.
Chief Judge Carla Craig, who issued the ruling, previously postponed two previous hearings while the hospital settled with creditors and arranged other financial interests. In one such settlement, the IM Foundation agreed to contribute at least $750,000 to a malpractice claims fund and surrender ownership of two parking lots used by the hospital in exchange for properties at 515 Herkimer Street, 276 and 278 Nostrand Avenue, a foundation spokesperson told DNAinfo.
The hospital slipped into bankruptcy in December 2012 after years of financial trouble, and has been on the cusp of closure on at least two occasions. [DNAinfo] — Julie Strickland