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BRONX TIMES REPORTER,22 SEPT. 24-30, 2021 BTR
FEMA to cover COVID-19
costs for NYC hospitals
Mayor Bill de Blasio gives a thumbs outside Mott Haven’s Lincoln Hospital, one of 11 public
city hospitals that will receive reimbursement from FEMA for expenses accrued during the
pandemic.
Photo New York City Mayor’s Offi ce
BY ROBBIE SEQUEIRA
New York City’s public hospitals
secured a win on Sept. 15, as they will
fi nally receive overdue federal reimbursement
for their crucial work during
the city’s COVID-19 crisis.
In front of Mott Haven’s Lincoln
Hospital, one of the “hardest-hit” hospitals
during the COVID-19 pandemic,
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that
FEMA will fi nally reimburse all 11
NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), an estimated
$600 million in funds used
to cover pandemic needs and costs
throughout its system.
Additional expenses could bring
the total reimbursement package to $1
billion.
H+H which had allocated the funds
from their own pockets to cover shortages
in PPE, ventilators and medication
during the throes of the pandemic,
has been waiting for FEMA assistance
since October.
After spending roughly $890 million
of its own funds in October, H+H
fi led a reimbursement request with
FEMA for roughly $900 million for
staffi ng and capacity related expenses.
However, FEMA had only agreed to
cover less than a third of the request,
citing that H+H was ineligible to receive
full reimbursement because
they “had confl ated regular hospital
expenses with emergency coronavirus
operations.”
Calls for FEMA to act grew louder
when Democrats, U.S. Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer and U.S. Rep.
Ritchie Torres, called out the federal
agency to reimburse the 11-hospital
system in a July 23 press conference in
front of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx.
Schumer expressed relief on
Wednesday, stating, “The bottom line
is: Today we want to thank FEMA. We
got this done.”
De Blasio commended Schumer,
Torres and Dr. Mitchell Katz, H+H
president and CEO, for their work on
the ground, while also praising the
city’s public hospitals for their crucial
role during the city’s months, in 2020,
as a COVID-19 epicenter.
“I remember every minute of
March and April 2020. Lincoln was
one of the hardest hit hospitals in
all of New York City. We need to talk
about Elmhurst. We need to talk about
Bellevue,” the mayor said. “We need to
talk about every H + H hospital, and
some of our brother and sister hospitals,
independents, who went through
so much, but in the end, H + H hospitals
were the tip of the spear. And Lincoln
was one of the ones that took on
the toughest mission.”
During the pandemic, Lincoln’s
emergency room bed capacity was expanded
by 120% and its Intensive Care
Unit by 316%, according to Schumer.
Hospitals, 911 and emergency medical
services agencies — including fi re
service and certain private nonprofi t
services — are eligible to apply for a
75% federal cost-share reimbursement
from FEMA for certain costs related
to the COVID-19 response.
Katz, on Wednesday, noted that the
leadership of de Blasio and the city’s
fi nancial accommodations and fl exibility
allowed short-staffed and shortsupplied
H+H hospitals to procure
more supplies and staff to withstand
the harshest waves of the coronavirus.
“We were short on staffi ng and the
Mayor never questioned whether or
not we would get fully reimbursed …
but he still said, ‘do it now, do whatever
you have to do.’ And I’m very grateful
sir,” Katz said. “You saved lives, and
the people here at Lincoln were amazing
heroes through that awful time.”
Est. 1940
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