Maimonides ‘savior’s ‘smear’ tactic: pol
The fate of Brooklyn’s beleaguered Maimonides Medical Center is at the center of a local power struggle — that appeared to boil over Sunday when an influential state lawmaker slammed a group that has pledged to “save” the hospital as “not kosher.”
State Sen. Simcha Felder, who represents the communities around Maimonides and was born there, made the comments in an interview with The Post ahead of a town hall meeting planned by the group — “Save Maimonides” — for Monday night.
“The movement is not kosher. It’s absolutely a smear campaign,” Felder said.
He accused the organization of being led by “hatchet men who’ve run negative campaigns and whose goal is destroy the hospital and besmirch [Maimonides CEO] Ken Gibbs.”
“Maybe they want Ken Gibbs’ job,” added Felder.
The senator said the group is spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on what he described as an anti-Maimonides campaign.
Neighborhood residents and elected officials have complained about the quality of patient care at Maimonides, describing Brooklyn’s largest hospital as disorganized and in decline.
In February, The Post reported that top executives at the Borough Park hospital were pocketing seven-figure salaries while the 700bed facility was hemorrhaging tens of millions of dollars. Gibbs, for instance, saw his compensation skyrocket from $1.8 million to $3.2 million from 2019 to 2020, during the worst of the pandemic, according to not-for-profit financial records filed with the IRS.
Earlier this month, The Post reported about claims from patients about poor care, that were among nearly 1,000 complaints collected by the Save Maimonides campaign, a grassroots effort launched in July to counter what it contends is neglect and mismanagement at the hospital.
Felder said the need for improvements at Maimonides is beyond dispute. He was one of five legislators who penned a letter to Gibbs last month, detailing a list of complaints, including excessively long wait times pinned on staffing shortages, and fiscal mismanagement.
“Everyone agrees improvements have to be made. You fix the problem. It doesn’t mean you destroy the hospital,” he said.
Union workers at the hospital also have prodded Maimonides officials to bolster patient safety and staffing — without undermining the stability of the facility.
Save Maimonides, in a statement, suggested that Felder is beholden to the hospital’s trustees and management who have donated to his campaigns.
“Everyone agrees improvements have to be made. You fix the problem. It doesn’t mean you destroy the hospital”
— Simcha Felder
‘Donor pressure’
“It is unfortunate that Senator Felder seems to be under pressure from his donors at the hospital, but we agree with his recent public statements regarding the poor patient treatment, financial mismanagement and indifference of the executives at Maimonides Medical Center,” the statement said. “We hope this sudden change of heart does not mean he is also turning his back on over 2,000 of his constituents who have voiced their shock at the poor quality of care at the failing hospital in recent weeks. We have one goal — to make Maimonides better for all of its patients.”
Felder scoffed when hearing the group’s statement, and said he hasn’t had a competitive election in years and hasn’t focused on fundraising.
In its own statement, the hospital said the Save Maimonides group is undermining the facility by scaring Brooklyn residents away from seeking care there.