LI pols demand more state funding for ailing Nassau County Medical Center: ‘Unacceptable failure’

A group of Long Island pols is urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to boost taxpayer funding for the ailing Nassau University Medical Center — which has racked up $700 million in losses in the past decade.

NUMC — one of three public hospitals in New York and the only one on Long Island — has been on the brink of financial collapse for years thanks to increased demand for services and plummeting state aid, according to its operator, the Nassau Health Care Corporation.

“In 2021, New York state provided $180 million in subsidies to the hospital,’’ hospital supporter and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman told The Post on Tuesday.

“This past year, 2024, they have provided zero funds to the hospital in an attempt to close it and blame it on hospital leadership, who have made significant strides in reducing costs and improving services,’’ he said.

A dozen local lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle fired off a letter to Hochul this past weekend laying out the same concerns.

They called for the state budget negotiations unfolding next month to include money to ensure the hospital stays afloat. 

NUMC, which is also home to Nassau’s only Level One trauma center, has not received any state aid in more than two years, says the letter — calling this “a glaring and unacceptable failure by New York State.” 

But Hochul’s Long Island press secretary, Gordon Tepper, said the lawmakers are wrong.

“Despite their false claims, NUMC has received significant financial support,” Tepper told The Post.

He said the aid includes $117 million in 2024 and $38 million to date for 2025 — with further payments only being paused because of NUMC’s own lawsuit against the state.

The lawsuit, filed in November, alleges the state withheld more than $1 billion in Medicaid funds from the health center starting over two decades ago — claims that leaders in Albany deny. 

The hospital wants the state to pay out the funds it says they withheld, plus an additional $40 million in direct aid to cover employee contracts and other needs, said Bob Driscoll, an NUMC rep, to Crain’s New York Business. 

NUMC spokesman Tom Basile, added to The Post that the hospital have not received any of the money Tepper is referencing and said none of its grant applications in 2024 were approved.

Critics of the hospital’s leadership, including local Democratic state Sen. Siela Bynoe, have called the hosp a “hotbed” of corruption, bloated salaries, nepotism, and cronyism.

They have agreed to fight for NUMC’s survival — but only while working to replace those running it. 
“NUMC’s biggest obstacle to receiving state aid is its own leadership,’’ Tepper said.

But the Nassau County Legislature’s presiding officer, Howard Kopel, fired back to The Post, “We stand with our New York State representatives and join them in demanding that Governor Hochul restore funding to NUMC and stop playing politics with the healthcare of Nassau’s most needy.’’