Good afternoon Chair Narcisse and member of the committee, and thank you for holding this hearing today. My name is Tamisha Johnson and I am here representing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.
New York City’s public hospital system continues to act as a clinical care safety net for the growing number of vulnerable people in our city, such as the unhoused, asylum seekers, and the uninsured. These facilities are also frequently the main resource for advanced healthcare in under-resourced communities, in addition to operating many primary care centers in these areas.
In FY24, H+H facilities saw more than 1.2M unique patients, 70% of whom were either uninsured or covered by Medicaid. Yet City hospitals continue to suffer from staffing deficiencies caused by their inability to attract and maintain quality personnel due to their lack of competitive salaries. They also frequently lack the resources necessary to consistently deliver high-quality care due to outdated infrastructure and limited capacity to perform complex procedures.
The Preliminary FY26 Budget proposes more than $500 million in cuts for H+H compared to last fiscal year. While some of these cuts come from scaling back pandemic response measures, services for asylum seekers also face a significant reduction. These cuts are concerning, especially considering uncertainty about whether the flow of migrants to the city will continue and/or how well the public healthcare system can serve, without continued funding, the more than 200,000 asylum seekers who have already arrived Additionally, New York City’s Correctional Health Service (which is operated by H+H and provides healthcare for incarcerated patients) also faces an $11.7 million funding cut, despite there being no appreciable decrease in the patient census numbers for CHS to warrant it.
Maternal health continues to be a major priority for Borough President Reynoso. He is happy to see that the proposed budget for H+H includes funding for initiatives such as the Baby Box Pilot to provide new parents with baby and postpartum supplies and other resources. However, we need to do more. New York City’s last comprehensive report on pregnancy-associated mortality showed striking and persistent racial disparities in maternal deaths, with Black non-Hispanic mothers dying from pregnancy-related causes at six times the rate of their white counterparts. Following expert review, almost three-quarters of these deaths were found to be
preventable with systems-level changes in care. H+H’s Maternal Medical Home program (developed to improve high-risk obstetric outcomes by providing integrated medical and social services to expectant mothers with complex care needs) and obstetric simulation training (to allow clinical providers to practice how to manage obstetric emergencies) are examples of programs that should be expanded.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak today. Borough President Reynoso looks forward to working with the Council to ensure that all New Yorkers, whether they’ve been here all their lives or arrived yesterday, can access the care they need.
