After Cuomo criticism, Curran backs away from NUMC

                                                                               

Gov. Andrew Cuomo urges public officials, including Laura Curran, to manage public hospitals

Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, who names the chairman of the Nassau University Medical Center and approves the selection of its president, insisted today that she doesn't run Nassau's only public hospital. 

Curran backed away from NUMC just after Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a news conference slammed the East Meadow hospital for administering only 19 percent of the vaccines it received to combat the coronavirus.

Threatening to fine hospitals like NUMC for its slow vaccine rollout, Cuomo added, "It does raise questions about the operational efficiencies of these hospitals."  

He called for public officials in the hospitals' operating areas  "to take personal responsibility" and displayed their photos, including that of fellow Democrat Curran.

Curran then held her own news conference about Nassau's latest coronavirus numbers. Out of the blue, she added, "NUMC is a separate hospital.  Nassau County does not run NUMC."

Curran also pointed out that Nassau had sold the hospital in 1999 to a public benefit corporation, NuHealth. She didn't mention Nassau backed the facility with millions of dollars in county bonds.

When pressed by a reporter, Curran said she had asked the hospital board for a plan of action. Had she received it? "We're working on it," she said.

Curiously, Curran had no problem last year in telling the NUMC board what it could and could not do.

After Curran named longtime health care executive Robert Detor as chairman in January -- but before he started work -- the board hurriedly appointed Dr. Anthony Boutin as interim chief executive and president.

Indignant,  Curran wrote a letter to the board, which was still nominally controlled by Republicans appointed during the tenure of former Republican County Executive Ed Mangano, saying, "I do not believe that the Board’s appointment of an interim chief executive officer is lawful or appropriate."

According to Newsday, Curran wrote that the appointment of a chief executive officer is “subject to the approval of the County Executive of Nassau County. Please be advised that I hereby object to and reject the appointment of Dr. Boutin as interim chief executive officer.”

The same day, Newsday reported, Cuomo appointed three new Curran-friendly trustees to the NUMC Board.

State law says that the NuHealth board "shall select the chief executive officer subject to the approval of the county executive … the chief executive officer shall serve at the pleasure of the board of directors …"

Note that state law does not address interim appointments.

Detor said he was assuming the role of chief executive and president himself before appointing anyone on an interim or permanent basis.

Then, oddly, a few days later, Detor appointed Boutin  acting president. Subsequently. in November, the revamped board voted to make Boutin's appointment permanent, for a salary of $535,000.

At the same meeting, at the urging of Detor, the board also voted to hire at John Donnelly as NuHealth's $475,000-a-year chief operating officer. Donnelly was a deputy county executive for former Democratic County Executive Tom Suozzi, and also had served as Suozzi's personnel director. The remaining Republican board members objected that they had received no notice about Donnelly's proposed appointment nor his resume

But Curran praised the NuHealth board, "on their selection of a high quality management team."

Today, the Nassau legislature's Republican presiding officer, Richard Nicolello of New Hyde Park issued a statement, chiding Curran and saying it is inexcusable for NUMC to have only distributed 19 percent of the vaccine.

"The county executive can try to distance herself from NUMC but she needs to light a fire under the Chairman of the Board, whom she appointed to run NUMC," Nicolello said.