There’s a lesson Scripture teaches time and again: knowledge requires discernment earlier than motion.
Good stewards don’t make everlasting selections in moments of worry. They search counsel. They collect the details. They ask troublesome questions. And solely then do they transfer ahead.
That lesson has been on my coronary heart as I watch Brooklyn face one of the crucial consequential well being care selections in generations.
While you serve the folks of Brooklyn lengthy sufficient, you come to know Maimonides Medical Middle not merely as a hospital, however as sacred floor.
For greater than 100 years, it has been one of many establishments that has quietly held this borough collectively.
That’s the reason the proposal to completely switch Maimonides from an unbiased nonprofit hospital into the NYC Well being + Hospitals system deserves way more scrutiny than it has acquired.
Let me be clear.
This isn’t an argument towards change.
Neither is it an argument towards public hospitals, whose devoted docs, nurses, and employees present extraordinary care on daily basis.
It’s an argument towards making an irreversible resolution earlier than we all know whether or not it’s actually the one path out there.
Brooklyn has discovered the painful value of that mistake earlier than.
Many people nonetheless keep in mind Lengthy Island School Hospital.
We have been informed the neighborhood can be protected. We have been assured well being care providers would stay. But, after years of guarantees, Brooklyn misplaced one in all its historic hospitals, and far of that property finally grew to become luxurious condominiums.
The hospital by no means got here again.
The guarantees couldn’t deliver it again.
That have modified what number of Brooklynites hear assurances from authorities and institutional leaders. When folks inform us at present, “Trust us. This is the only way,” we keep in mind what occurred the final time we heard phrases like these.
This isn’t the time for blind religion.
And whereas historical past could not repeat itself precisely, knowledge calls for that we study from it.
Nobody disputes that Maimonides faces critical monetary challenges. These challenges are actual.
However monetary misery shouldn’t be the identical factor as monetary impossibility.
The whole lot we’ve got heard suggests there are official questions on whether or not stronger administration, operational modernization, improved billing programs, new management, strategic partnerships, or affiliation with one other nonprofit well being system may stabilize Maimonides whereas permitting it to stay an unbiased neighborhood establishment.
However these potentialities haven’t all been rigorously studied and dominated out — so why are we speeding towards a everlasting switch?
The reply to poor administration shouldn’t routinely be surrendering a neighborhood asset.
Earlier than Brooklyn provides away one in all its most necessary charitable establishments, we deserve an unbiased evaluation that actually evaluates each sensible different.
That shouldn’t be controversial.
In truth, that’s precisely what good stewardship requires.
The courts have already decided that this proposal can not bypass the general public evaluation course of required beneath New York legislation. State legislation additionally requires a Well being Fairness Influence Evaluation as a result of selections like these have an effect on medically underserved and culturally distinct communities in profound methods.
These safeguards are usually not bureaucratic obstacles.
They’re protections for the folks.
They exist as a result of hospitals are completely different from virtually each different establishment.
As soon as a hospital is gone — or essentially reworked — it’s terribly troublesome to revive what was misplaced.
Maimonides serves one of the crucial superbly various communities wherever in America.
Day-after-day, it cares for Orthodox Jewish households who’ve trusted its cultural understanding and spiritual lodging for generations. It serves Muslim households, Latino communities, Caribbean Individuals, Asian Individuals, Russian-speaking residents, immigrants, and households from each nook of the world who’ve made Brooklyn their residence.
It additionally serves 1000’s upon 1000’s of Black New Yorkers.
For generations, African American households have trusted Maimonides in moments that outline a lifetime.
As pastors, we all know its hallways effectively.
We’ve rushed there after late-night cellphone calls telling us {that a} church member had suffered a coronary heart assault. We’ve prayed over victims of violence. We’ve sat with anxious households ready for surgical procedure to finish. We’ve devoted youngsters who took their first breath there and comforted households whose final earthly moments with a beloved one occurred inside these partitions.
Our church buildings have lengthy considered Maimonides as greater than a well being care supplier.
It has been a trusted companion in caring for our congregations.
That form of belief can’t be recreated by a authorities decision.
It’s earned over generations.
And as soon as it’s damaged, rebuilding it could take generations extra.
Nobody ought to worry an unbiased audit.
Nobody ought to worry a clear analysis of each out there choice.
If an unbiased evaluation finally concludes that becoming a member of NYC Well being + Hospitals is the one sensible path to preserving well being care on this neighborhood, then I’ll settle for that conclusion as a result of it’s going to have been reached actually, transparently, and with the general public totally knowledgeable.
But when one other path exists — one which preserves each the hospital and its independence — we owe it to each household in Brooklyn to find that earlier than we decide that can’t be undone.
The query earlier than us shouldn’t be merely who owns a hospital.
The query is whether or not Brooklyn has discovered from its personal historical past.
Lengthy Island School Hospital taught us that after a neighborhood establishment disappears, remorse can not rebuild it.
Allow us to not wait till years from now to wonder if we requested sufficient questions.
Allow us to search the reality now.
Allow us to look at each different.
And allow us to depart our youngsters a stronger Maimonides than the one we inherited — not one other story in regards to the hospital Brooklyn as soon as had.
Earlier than we completely change the way forward for Maimonides, allow us to do what each good doctor does: decelerate, collect all of the details, search a second opinion, and make the precise prognosis earlier than prescribing a remedy that can’t be undone.
