Two veterans hospitals, in Manhattan and Brooklyn, will remain open after a three-year campaign by city officials and representatives in Congress to save them from being closed or consolidated as part of a nationwide restructuring plan.
R. James Nicholson, the secretary of veterans affairs, said yesterday that a decision about the hospitals in Kips Bay and Bay Ridge was reached after intensive review and analysis of what would be best for the city’s 312,000 veterans. He announced the decision yesterday on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s weekly radio program on WABC-AM.
“So what we’re going to do is keep them open because of the excellence that they’re providing,” Mr. Nicholson said. “They complement each other, these facilities.”
In addition, he said, a third facility, a veterans’ medical center in St. Albans, Queens, would be modernized.
The decision was hailed as a victory by Mr. Bloomberg and members of the New York Congressional delegation who have lobbied the Department of Veterans Affairs, which runs hundreds of hospitals across the country, to keep open the two in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The mayor said that he had testified at hearings, written letters and pressed the issue with federal officials.
“Three different boroughs, V.A. facilities,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “And they’re going to stay and expand and keep doing what we want them to do: provide great care for people that live in this city, in this case for those who served this country.”
In discussing the decision, Mr. Nicholson praised the quality of care provided by the hospitals. He said the Manhattan hospital was known for its cardiac and neurosurgical care, and the Brooklyn hospital for its cancer treatments and women’s health programs. The Queens center, he said, specialized in geriatric care.
“We can justify each of them,” he said. “And they’re thusly going to keep each of them operating.”
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat who has fought for the hospitals, pointed out that the Manhattan hospital had a widely used prosthetics lab, which was needed now more than ever by veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with war injuries.
She added that another advantage of the Manhattan hospital, at East 23rd Street and First Avenue, is its accessibility and convenience for many veterans who walk or take the subway or buses.
“It has been a three-year battle,” Ms. Maloney said. “And it has been very stressful for the veterans who look to the hospitals for their care and the hospitals’ staff.”
