Despite years of planning and five deaths of people in Department of Correction custody this year alone, the Adams administration can't seem to open a new Manhattan hospital unit designed to take in sick and disabled people from the crowded jail infirmary on Rikers Island, even though hospital officials insist that the unit is ready to take patients.
The new unit at Bellevue Hospital—which is built specifically to care for 104 Rikers detainees with severe medical issues—was originally meant to open in December 2022 and has been overdue for more than two years now.
In March, NYC Health + Hospitals head Dr. Mitch Katz triumphantly told a City Council hearing that the specialized unit was "done!" and "construction complete." The Department of Buildings issued its certificate of occupancy in February.
But a day later, NYC Department of Correction Assistant Commissioner Alexandria Maldonado pushed back on the facility's readiness, telling councilmembers there was more "construction" to be done and that the agency had final "punch-list items" to complete before opening the unit. She cited "security programming" and the installation of an emergency generator, which is not required for the unit to be greenlit for opening by the New York State Commission of Correction.
The delay in opening the Bellevue facility is representative of the DOC's slow-walking in assisting patients in need at Rikers, even as at least 63 people have died in its custody since 2020—with about a third of those deaths caused by medical issues. And on Wednesday, Maldonado again appeared in front of the City Council hearing on Criminal Justice and said the department is still not ready to staff the unit, and continues to work on the vague "punch-list items" and the emergency generator.
"We're actually having a site meeting on this tomorrow afternoon, to really hone in on how we can operationalize this," she said.