{"id":188467,"date":"2026-04-07T16:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188467\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:41:07","slug":"nyc-takes-first-steps-to-move-health-care-off-rikers-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188467\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Takes First Steps to Move Health Care Off Rikers Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In an effort to close the jail complex, the city opened a health center at NYC Health + Hospitals\/Bellevue to treat incarcerated New Yorkers. A Brooklyn outpost at Woodhull Hospital will follow. <\/p>\n<p>In an effort to close Rikers Island, the city opened an outpost health center\u00a0at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nychealthandhospitals.org\/locations\/bellevue\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NYC Health + Hospitals\/Bellevue<\/a> so it can treat incarcerated New Yorkers away from the troubled jail complex.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 104-bed unit will serve people in custody with complex medical needs by transferring the most clinically vulnerable detainees from Rikers Island into a therapeutic setting with closer access to specialty care. An Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit will open at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nychealthandhospitals.org\/locations\/woodhull\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NYC Health + Hospitals\/Woodhull<\/a> by the end of 2029, according to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n<p>The Bellevue site, which was completed in 2025 but sat empty for 15 months, represents a shift in how the city delivers care to incarcerated people, moving away from a system defined by delays towards one rooted in dignity, access and prevention, city officials said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The facilities at Rikers have long languished in disrepair, creating the conditions for violence and putting those with health conditions at serious risk,&#8221; Mamdani said at a press conference. &#8220;For decades, our city&#8217;s approach to mental health has leaned heavily on criminalization. For many in the throes of crisis, Rikers has been their holding cell. As such, it has become a de facto mental health facility, now standing as the second largest in the country, forcing staff and corrections officers to shoulder a burden they were never supposed to bear.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Manhattan site will serve patients with serious conditions such as cancer and congestive heart failure who do not require hospitalization but face heightened risks in a traditional jail setting. The unit will provide direct access to a full range of specialty services, including oncology, cardiology and neurology. Correctional Health Services\u00a0clinicians will deliver care on-site, with enhanced monitoring and support in a therapeutic environment designed to improve health outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>The Brooklyn site will serve detainees with significant mental health needs.<\/p>\n<p>CHS will remain the primary provider of clinical care, working in close coordination with specialists. The NYC Department of Correction will provide security, custody management, programming and other services.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe opening of the Outposted Therapeutic Housing unit at Bellevue Hospital is a phenomenal achievement for New York City, as it marks another first in carceral care,\u201d said Dr. Patsy Yang, senior vice president for NYC Health + Hospitals\/Correctional Health Services. \u201cWe at CHS have long envisioned the Outposted units as a better way to care for our most medically involved patients. The units are another milestone in how we see and treat people in a more respectful and decent way.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an effort to close the jail complex, the city opened a health center at NYC Health +&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75559,9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-188467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-healthmental-healthrikers-island","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-ny","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-nyc-headlines","13":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}