Governor Kathy Hochul visited Boro Park this afternoon for a food distribution at 13th Avenue and 60th Street, as community leaders and local residents intensified calls for her administration to pause the proposed transfer of Maimonides Health into the NYC Health + Hospitals system.

With the New York State Public Health and Health Planning Council expected to approve the transfer on Thursday, opposition is escalating across Boro Park and surrounding Orthodox Jewish communities.

Hochul’s visit to the neighborhood this afternoon underscored the urgency of those concerns, according to community leaders, who said the Governor should hear directly from the community before the State moves forward with an irreversible decision.

“If Albany and the Governor’s office ignore tens of thousands of people who are asking only for transparency and an honest review, they should not be surprised if this becomes a major political issue in November,” said one community leader. “People feel that their voices are being dismissed.”

“How are you going to come to the outskirts of Boro Park on a Wednesday, and then on a Thursday, move ahead with a terrible decision that most of this community is completely against?” said another community leader. “Showing up is not the same as listening.”

Community leaders, residents, and elected officials are urging Hochul and state health officials to halt the process, release a full independent financial analysis, and ensure that the future of Maimonides—a hospital with more than a century of history and deep ties to Brooklyn’s Jewish community—is not decided behind closed doors.

Opponents say the public has not received a sufficiently transparent accounting of Maimonides’ finances or a meaningful public review of alternatives to a full transfer of control.

In a recent letter to the state public health council, a group of local elected leaders, including State Senator Sam Sutton, State Senator Stephen Chen, Assemblymember Simcha Eichenstein, Assemblymember Lester Chang, Assemblymember Kalman Yeger, City Councilmember Simcha Felder, and City Councilmember Susan Zhuang, all urged a pause and review. 

“We are particularly concerned by the lack of transparency surrounding this process,” the elected leaders wrote. “The future of a century-old community institution should not be decided through a process that appears to have moved forward behind closed doors, without the public having access to the information necessary to understand the decision being made on its behalf.” 

The PHHPC’s Establishment and Project Review Committee voted unanimously in late August to advance the transaction. Still, many in the Orthodox community say assurances on paper are no substitute for local accountability, transparency, and independent governance.

At that hearing, numerous Boro Park leaders testified against the merger.

“Over 30,000 petitions do not support this decision, plus all of the elected leaders that represent that hospital do not support this. It should tell you something about this decision,” testified Assemblymember Lester Chang. 

“We don't have to choose a government takeover,” Assemblymember Simcha Eichenstein said during his testimony. “Let’s conduct an independent assessment of the hospital’s long-term viability. If we rush into this takeover now, Brooklyn will regret it for decades to come and there will be no way to reverse it.”