{"id":188882,"date":"2026-04-07T22:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188882\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T22:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:14:09","slug":"rikers-detainees-with-serious-health-issues-to-be-moved-to-new-bellevue-hospital-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188882\/","title":{"rendered":"Rikers detainees with serious health issues to be moved to new Bellevue Hospital unit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new unit for prisoners<\/a> with serious medical needs is opening at Bellevue Hospital, in a step closer toward closing Rikers Island, Mayor Mamdani announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The long-delayed opening of the 104-bed unit comes with the decommissioning of the North Infirmary Command<\/a>, the notorious jail complex\u2019s original hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor decades, the daily conditions at Rikers have been calamitous and unsafe,\u201d Mamdani said at a press conference announcing the unit\u2019s opening. \u201cRikers, as we know, is broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital wing cost $241 million, and around 100 people will move into the units on Wednesday, the mayor said. The city is looking to open two more similar units at hospitals in Brooklyn and the Bronx by 2029, to house a total of 340 detainees between the three sites.<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Zohran Mamdani announces the opening of New York City\u2019s first Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit at NYC Health + Hospitals\/Bellevue on Tuesday, April 7, 2026. (Ed Reed \/ Mayoral Photography Office)<\/p>\n

The Bellevue unit is part of the city\u2019s efforts to close the infamous jail complex, the mayor said. Rikers currently houses roughly 7,000 detainees, around three-quarters of whom have not been convicted of any crimes. The borough-based jails being constructed to replace the complex are projected to have a capacity of only around 4,000.<\/p>\n

Two men died<\/a> last month within days of each other at Rikers, and 15 people perished in custody last year.<\/p>\n

Mamdani said it would be \u201cpractically impossible to fulfill\u201d the City Council\u2019s law mandating the city shutter Rikers by next year, blaming the Adams administration\u2019s \u201clack of interest\u201d in doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is going to take us quite a bit of time to ensure that we can put our city back on the path that the City Council voted for in 2019,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it will also take a whole-of-government approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Zohran Mamdani announces the opening of New York City\u2019s first Outposted Therapeutic Housing Unit at NYC Health + Hospitals\/Bellevue on Tuesday, April 7, 2026. (Ed Reed \/ Mayoral Photography Office)<\/p>\n

The plans for the therapeutic housing unit were originally unveiled in 2019 and planned to be completed in 2022, but fell years behind schedule due to the COVID pandemic and procedural delays. The new facility sat empty after construction was completed in 2025, with the Department of Correction citing staffing shortages as a main obstacle to its opening.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we are charting a different course, one that diverts from the path of neglect and begins the process of closing Rikers Island once and for all,\u201d Mamdani said, slamming his predecessor, Adams, adding that, despite the staffing concerns, DOC received more than three times the applicants they needed to staff the unit.<\/p>\n

The unit is stocked with physical therapy and occupational therapy equipment, a basketball court and \u201cvoluntary respite rooms,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis facility represents a long-overdue step toward aligning our justice system with basic human dignity,\u201d Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said at the announcement.<\/p>\n

2002<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Todd Maisel\/New York Daily News<\/p>\n

An aerial view of the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City. (Todd Maisel \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The North Infirmary Command<\/a>, or NIC, will be transferred to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services in June, Mamdani said. The NIC houses more than 300 detainees, not just those with physical and mental health needs, but also regular inmates and those requiring extreme protective custody. The mayor said the remainder of those at the NIC will be relocated to elsewhere on Rikers.<\/p>\n

Also in attendance at the press conference announcing the new unit was Nicolas Deml, Rikers Island\u2019s recently court-appointed remediation manager. Deml said Tuesday that he wasn\u2019t allowed to speak to the press under the court order but that the new unit was \u201creally an impressive facility.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new unit for prisoners with serious medical needs is opening at Bellevue Hospital, in a step closer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[267,9,24,55,54,10,692,12,56,87],"class_list":{"0":"post-188882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-local-news","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-politics","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188882","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=188882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}