Dear Editor,
In this op ed, two former Long Island College Hospital (LICH) doctors argue that there is no need for LICH, which as a full-service hospital (they say) is a large, cumbersome, outdated facility; instead, they insist that Brooklynites, especially lower-income residents, need little walk-in clinics to provide their care.
What do the two doctors writing this op ed think of all the fancy medical facilities being built in the Upper East Side of Manhattan? Are people’s needs any different there? Or is it that lower-income, minority people need not seek access to the full spectrum of medical care they’re going to need? WHEN DO WE NOT NEED A HOSPITAL?
This sounds like the old argument that you get what you pay for, and if you can’t pay for your care, then you just don’t get it. The idea is to stop relying on Medicaid, which is being attacked and cut. Medicaid should be increased and should cover the care of everyone who can’t afford it. Period. Don’t ask them to apologize or explain their poverty. Jobs are scarce, wages are low. They’re being kept that way by the rich entrepreneurs who keep getting richer.
Go ahead and promote the services walk-in clinics can provide, as long as lower-income people have full 24/7 access to them without having to shell out money they don’t have. But you know, we all get really sick sometimes, and need hospital care. How is the loss of LICH “culturally sensitive”? Is this a thinly disguised statement of unbridled bias against people who are not white and/or rich?
Healthcare is a right for all–not a privilege for the 1%.
