PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Mark Hannay, Director of Metro New York Health Care for All, on Hospital Access and Equity
3:17:32
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160 sec
Mark Hannay, Director of Metro New York Health Care for All, testifies on the importance of hospital access and equity across New York City. He criticizes state leadership for ceding control to industry and market forces, and urges local government to take action to ensure equitable hospital services throughout the city.
- Proposes several ideas for improving hospital oversight and community involvement, including signing the Local Input for Community Healthcare Act and creating active community advisory boards for hospitals.
- Emphasizes the need to decentralize hospital services from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and distribute them across all communities in the city.
- Calls for the New York City Department of Health to comment on hospital certificate of need applications and suggests reviving a regional health system agency for ongoing health planning in the city.
Mark Hannay
3:17:32
Good afternoon.
3:17:33
I'm Mark Hahn.
3:17:33
I am Director of Metro New York Healthcare for All.
3:17:36
We're a regional community labor coalition who works on healthcare issues, and one of our projects is to coordinate the same Beth Israel and New York Eye And Ear campaign.
3:17:47
Thanks for holding this hearing.
3:17:49
It's long overdue and really important.
3:17:52
All hospitals in New York, our state, are licensed as charitable institutions to serve their local communities and larger regions, and it's the obligation of hospital operators to figure out how to do that in partnership with state and local governments and local community stakeholders.
3:18:13
We and all the various local communities across our city deeply value our local hospitals, and they are among the most important and necessary community institutions.
3:18:24
While the responsibility of hospital industry oversight historically falls under the purview of state government.
3:18:32
In the eyes of many of us advocates, our state leaders have abdicated that responsibility and obligation to represent the public's interest and instead have ceded the matter to industry and private market forces.
3:18:48
So, unfortunately, for a better or worse, it falls to our local governments to step into this breach.
3:18:55
As best you can, and we urge you to seize that opportunity and be creative and bold.
3:19:03
We have some ideas for you to consider my testimony go written testimony goes into that further.
3:19:09
Yes.
3:19:09
Absolutely.
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Urged Governor Hochol to sign the local input for Community Healthcare Act.
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Secondly, have the New York City Department of Health comment on all full review certificate of need applications submitted by hospitals to the New York State Department of Health.
3:19:27
3, create and revive or revive a regional health system agency for New York City to undertake ongoing regional health planning for New York City.
3:19:40
And finally, require all individual hospitals to have an active community advisory board.
3:19:48
Comprised of a variety of stakeholders from the local community.
3:19:53
We must take on this issue of health at hospital access to hospital care equity across our city we cannot continue to concentrate hospital services on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and they must be available in all our communities across the city.
