SUNY Downstate Health Sciences doctors and students pose for a picture in a hospital hallway after a health fair finished.

A Stronger Downstate

A Stronger Downstate

As New York City’s only public academic medical center, SUNY Downstate has served the community for the last 160 years and is dedicated to training a diverse, world-class healthcare workforce, advancing biomedical science through cutting-edge research, and providing high-quality care to Brooklyn residents.

We are committed to a strong future for SUNY Downstate and the students and community it proudly serves.

While SUNY Downstate continues to tackle systemic health disparities in Brooklyn and beyond, years of financial instability and a hospital facility in disrepair have put the short-term viability and long-term success of our hospital in jeopardy. The building routinely floods, has temperature control issues, and many other physical challenges. Even beyond the urgent need for repairs,  healthcare facilities across the country are seeing more care being delivered outside of the hospital, and Downstate is no exception with low bed utilization rates and massive funding shortfalls.

To address these urgent, ongoing challenges and ensure that SUNY Downstate can continue pursuing its mission, SUNY is working in coordination with Governor Kathy Hochul to launch a process to establish an ambitious, clear-eyed plan that will strengthen the institution and build a sustainable and healthy future for generations to come — with a vibrant, thriving health sciences university at its core.

SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University is made up of the College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Graduate Studies, School of Health Professions, and School of Public Health. At the end of the process, our institution will be even better-positioned to continue training excellent, diverse healthcare professionals; ensuring the communities surrounding Downstate get the quality, affordable health care they deserve; and tackling health disparities that so many New Yorkers — from Brooklyn to Buffalo — face on a daily basis.

Downstate will be better equipped than ever to meet current and future challenges: a healthcare worker shortage, persistent health inequities compounded by economic insecurity, and a diminishing pipeline of medical research focused on practical solutions to public health crises.

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