‘A game-changer’
BY JESSICA PARKS
Maimonides Medical Center
will open a new emergency
department within the
old Victory Memory Hospital
site near the border of Bay
Ridge and Dyker Heights.
The hospital, located at the
intersection of 92nd Street
and Seventh Avenue, was
purchased by SUNY Downstate
Medical Center in 2008,
two years after its closure.
The site was renamed
SUNY Downstate at Bay
Ridge and was used for comprehensive
ambulatory care
only, which did not require
overnight stays, after SUNY
Downstate discontinued urgent
and laboratory care at
the location. SUNY Downstate
COURIER L 46 IFE, JUNE 18-24, 2021
later credited the purchase
as partial cause for its
poor fi nancial situation in
2013.
City Councilmember Justin
Brannan, who represents
Bay Ridge and Dyker
Heights, broke the news of
the neighborhood’s new emergency
department on Twitter
in the afternoon of June 15,
only hours after he teased a
“game-changer” for his district.
It is unclear whether Maimonides
bought the medical
facility or if it will rent from
SUNY Downstate, but Maimonides
plans to host an offi
cial groundbreaking at the
Dyker Heights hospital on
June 25, according to a hospital
rep, who declined to comment
further.
The former Victory Memorial
Hospital, which specialized
in maternity care, had a
history fraught with calamity.
In 1999, two patients were
killed in their hospital room
by one of their sons, and in
1970, a truck holding liquid
oxygen being delivered to
the hospital exploded outside,
killing the driver, a bystander
and injuring 40.
The hospital also settled
a lawsuit in 1992 after allegedly
giving a patient receiving
emergency ulcer surgery
The site of the former Victory Memorial Hospital near the border of Bay
Ridge and Dyker Heights, currently operated by SUNY Downstate. Google
HIV-tainted blood in 1986 and
the same doctor accused of
the infectious blood transfusion
faced criminal charges
for allegedly killing two patients
with his secretary at
the same time of the settlement.
Health
Maimonides Medical Center to open
new emergency department at site of
former Victory Memorial Hospital