Council panel probes H&H—plan to bring Maymonades into public hospital system

Council Member Mercedes Narcissis, chair of the New York City Council Committee on Hospitals, opened an oversight hearing to examine a proposed merger that would bring Maymonades Health into New York City Health and Hospitals (H&H), saying the panel would scrutinize implications for patients, staff and neighborhood services.

H&H—leadership, identified in the hearing by other speakers as Dr. Katz, told the committee the transaction is expected to close on April 1, 2026 if it receives required approvals and that the package negotiated with state officials includes $2.2 billion to support the hospital. "Five hundred million is for capital," the witness said, adding that $1.5 billion is for operations and $200 million would be loan forgiveness to address prior debt. He said capital funds would prioritize a modernized maternity ward at a hospital that records about 6,000 births a year.

The H&H witness described a technical and fiscal rationale for the merger: municipal hospitals can obtain a higher Medicaid reimbursement rate because a government entity can provide the required public match. "It's about $9 million a month for doing exactly what they do now," he said, estimating an immediate monthly increase in reimbursement for Maymonades once it joins H&H.

Panel members pressed for details on timelines, oversight and community protections. The witness said the state Department of Health, the state mental health regulator and the attorney general must approve the transaction and that, to his knowledge at the hearing, there was no restraining order preventing the closing. He also said much of the paperwork and asset valuation remains with Maymonades' board, which is petitioning state authorities for the transfer.

Council members and public speakers raised workforce and labor concerns. The administration witness said unionized workers will remain employed by a successor Maymonades nonprofit so that seniority and collective-bargaining rights continue; doctors would form an independent physician group and top executive roles (chief executive, chief medical officer, chief nursing officer) would be H&H employees for legal and operational reasons. "None of the unionized staff um will remain employees of the of a Mayanities corporation that will come out of the existing nonprofit," the witness explained, describing arrangements intended to preserve existing contracts.

Residents and union representatives urged firm, enforceable guarantees. Dr. Abdahim Dhan, a pediatrics resident at Maymonades and member of the Committee of Interns and Residents, told the committee that trainees need clarity on staffing, rotations and accreditation and asked for prompt memoranda of agreement to protect training conditions. Tori Newman Campbell, legislative coordinator for 1199 SEIU, said about 3,500 Maymonades workers are represented by 1199 and asked the city to prioritize staffing stability and protections during integration.

Committee members also pressed on cultural competency, language access and neighborhood outreach. The witness said H&H intends to preserve Maymonades' local identity and cultural practices, including accommodations cited by members of the Orthodox Jewish community, and said H&H's public-board processes and translation capacity could expand community access to oversight.

The hearing also covered operational details and risks: H&H officials said implementing a single Epic electronic health record will take roughly 15 months and will be carried out incrementally; some Maymonades sites still use multiple record systems or paper. Officials said bringing Epic to Maymonades will enable population-health management and easier patient access through MyChart, but also acknowledged a short-term learning curve.

Several witnesses and community speakers asked for transparent fiscal modeling showing how absorbing Maymonades' deficit would affect H&H given anticipated federal Medicaid cuts. David Alexis of the Commission on the Public Health System urged careful scrutiny of how the city plans to model uncompensated care, labor integration and long-term operational impacts.

On the pending litigation over the transfer, committee members were told that, while trustees have filed suit, "there is no restraining order," and that delays would primarily harm Maymonades financially because of monthly shortfalls. The witness warned that each month of delay could cost Maymonades roughly $9 million in foregone higher Medicaid reimbursements.

The hearing moved into public testimony, where union and community leaders gave mixed but largely pragmatic views: union representatives emphasized workforce protections, patient advocates sought assurances on cultural and language access, and community advisory board leaders said strong local leadership at H&H had inspired confidence that Maymonades could retain its neighborhood identity.

The committee concluded after taking several public and Zoom testimonies and reminded participants that written testimony could be submitted within 72 hours. The witness repeated that the merger will require multiple state approvals and that the committee's continuing oversight will focus on whether the transition preserves access, quality and worker protections.

Next steps identified at the hearing: ongoing paperwork and petitions to the attorney general and state health authorities, community engagement on cultural and access issues, work on Epic implementation and negotiated memoranda for trainees and unionized staff to lock in protections outlined during testimony.