Opinion: Protect Downstate and Protect This Community

The communities I represent in Central Brooklyn have some of the worst health outcomes in New York. By almost every measure — prevalence of illness, chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes, access to quality health care and average life expectancy — working class, Black and Brown communities like mine suffer from a deep and pervasive health equity gap.

In particular, Black women in Brooklyn have some of the worst maternal health outcomes in the entire state — they are more than nine times likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than their white counterparts.

Generations of Central Brooklynites have also been forced to deal with another harsh reality — a legacy of neglect, disinvestment and sometimes outright hostility from our government. We’ve experienced a history of redlining and segregation, inadequate public services, and even purported “improvements” that serve powerful interests while failing to take our real needs into account. Fighting against this legacy is the reason I ran for office.

So you can imagine my — and my community’s — frustration when these forces that have painfully shaped our community came together in the form of a proposal by the governor to “transform” SUNY-Downstate Hospital — a critical health care institution serving some of the most vulnerable patients I represent. The proposal would indeed “transform” the hospital — by closing it and sending patients elsewhere.