A roughly $21 million Brooklyn field hospital authorized by the de Blasio administration at the height of the coronavirus pandemic opened and closed without ever seeing one patient, according to city officials.
The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook was one of several sites across the five boroughs converted into a medical facility as a way to relieve the city’s overburdened hospital system as the COVID-19 crisis mounted.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans on Mar. 31 — a day after the USNS Comfort hospital ship arrived in New York Harbor to aid in the coronavirus fight — for the $20.8 million Red Hook field hospital with an estimated capacity for 750 beds.
The field hospital was built by Texas-based construction company SLSCO.
“They are going to set it up rapidly and we’re then going to go to the next site, the next site, the next site to meet our goal,” de Blasio told reporters of the site during that press conference in which the mayor also outlined the details to turn Queens’ Billie Jean King National Tennis Center into a 350-bed temporary hospital.
The makeshift hospital at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal was expected to open in April, but was not ready until May 4 – and is now being disbanded after being left unused, The City first reported.
“As part of our hospital surge, we expanded capacity at a breakneck speed, ensuring our hospital infrastructure would be prepared to handle the very worst. We did so only with a single-minded focus: saving lives,” de Blasio spokeswoman Avery Cohen told The Post Friday.
“Over the past few months, social distancing, face coverings, and other precautionary measures have flattened the curve drastically, and we remain squarely on focused taking that progress even further,” Cohen added.
The funding for the Red Hook hospital is expected to be reimbursed by FEMA.