Hospitals are more than buildings. They are the people who work inside them—the nurses, doctors and staff who dedicate their lives to caring for patients, often under impossible conditions. I have spent my career fighting for New York’s nurses, and I know firsthand that when a hospital is under-resourced or forced to scale back, it’s the frontline workers who bear the burden first. And when they are stretched too thin, patient care suffers.
That’s why Lenox Hill Hospital’s future isn’t just about bricks and mortar—it’s about investing in the people who make this hospital an essential part of New York’s healthcare system. At a time when too many hospitals are closing or struggling to stay afloat, Northwell Health and Lenox Hill are making a different choice: to invest in the future, ensuring that the nurses, doctors, and staff have the hospital they need to continue delivering the highest standard of care.
After close to a decade of conversations with the community, Lenox Hill Hospital has officially submitted its renewal plan with the City of New York. As with any big ideas, there are people afraid of change who oppose the proposal. But this debate isn’t just about Lenox Hill Hospital—it’s about the message we send to hospitals across New York. If we make it harder to invest in healthcare infrastructure, we are signaling that hospitals are expendable, and by extension, healthcare providers are expendable. We cannot allow that to happen, especially when the federal government is poised to slash Medicaid and Medicare funding, putting even more financial pressure on hospitals that serve the most vulnerable patients. Every delay, every cut, every missed opportunity to invest in hospital infrastructure leads to real consequences for real people.
For 160 years, Lenox Hill has been a pillar of this city and the Upper East Side community. Our nurses have been there through some of the most challenging moments. We were on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, caring for patients in the most dire circumstances, pushing themselves beyond exhaustion because their patients needed them. They are the ones comforting families in the ER, holding a patient’s hand after surgery, and making sure that New Yorkers—no matter who they are or where they come from—receive the care they deserve. Nurses know better than anyone that healthcare is about people, not just policies. That’s why we cannot afford to allow hospitals to shrink when patient needs grow and evolve.
Lenox Hill is not just a neighborhood hospital. It serves patients from across the city, with more than a third coming from the outer boroughs. For thousands of people in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, Lenox Hill is the hospital they turn to because of the trust they have in its doctors, nurses and specialists. More than 60 percent of Lenox Hill Hospital’s patients rely on Medicare or Medicaid, programs increasingly under threat from federal funding cuts. These patients cannot afford to lose access to care, yet without investment, that’s exactly the risk we face.
Hospitals should not have to choose between survival and modernization. Yet across the country, too many are being forced to make that choice. Rising expenses, workforce shortages and outdated facilities pressure hospitals to cut back rather than expand. We’ve seen this happen before; every time it does, the people who suffer most are those who can least afford it. Here in New York, we have a choice to make—do we allow hospitals to shrink under these pressures, or do we support efforts to invest in them so they can continue providing care for generations to come?
Lenox Hill Hospital and Northwell Health have made their choice. They are choosing to grow and support a healthcare system that can meet the changing needs of New Yorkers. With this building, they are choosing to invest in the nurses, doctors and hospital staff who show up every day to care for patients. Now, our community and city should do the same.
If we allow hospitals to struggle without investment, we are not just compromising a facility—we are putting the health and safety of patients at risk. The nurses and staff at Lenox Hill, like our colleagues across the city, already work under immense pressure to care for patients who often have nowhere else to turn. They cannot do their jobs properly if hospitals are allowed to deteriorate, and patients cannot receive the care they deserve if facilities cannot meet demand.
New Yorkers deserve better. The nurses, doctors and hospital staff who keep Lenox Hill running every day deserve better. And the 140,000 patients who walk through its doors each year cannot afford for us to get this wrong.
Kathleen Flynn, RN, is President of the New York Professional Nurses Union, which represents the nurses of Lenox Hill Hospital.
