ICE may be scaring Long Islanders from seeking medical care

Daily Point

NUMC chair attributes decline in visits to ICE fears

Nassau University Medical Center officials have seen a noticeable decline in the number of visits to the hospital over the last year, driven mostly by a decrease in the number of visits to NUMC’s emergency department, The Point has learned.

NUMC leaders worry that area residents are fearful of seeking care due to the deportation crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

“I am concerned that one of the reasons for the decline is that people are fearful of going to places where they’re worried ICE might be,” NUMC board Chairman Stuart Rabinowitz told The Point, noting that about 50% of the hospital’s patients are Spanish-speaking.

And it’s not just NUMC. Harmony Healthcare Long Island’s Westbury facility, which had ICE vehicles in its parking lot earlier this year, has seen 2,000 fewer visits year over year, a decrease of about 7%, according to Harmony president and chief executive David Nemiroff. And while Harmony’s system, which includes six freestanding centers in Nassau and four school-based offices in Nassau high schools, saw an overall small increase in visits year over year, Nemiroff said that’s mostly due to additional telehealth visits, an increase in the number of providers, and some new outreach efforts some of the centers have made.

Apart from those changes, Nemiroff said, Harmony and its patients have been feeling the impact of fears over ICE’s presence. About 25% of Harmony’s patients are uninsured, and 66% of them speak a language other than English as their primary language.

“It’s very, very troubling and it’s a very scary time for our patients,” Nemiroff told The Point.

Harmony is offering its patients Uber rides from their homes so they feel safer coming into the facilities, and is adding more telehealth options so patients can consult physicians without leaving home. Even then, however, Nemiroff noted that some patients are turning off their phones, worried there’s a danger.

Rabinowitz said he is concerned about NUMC’s patients feeling that fear, too, even though he emphasized that as far as NUMC officials are aware, ICE has had no presence inside the hospital.

“I strongly believe every resident of Nassau should not be afraid to get the health care that they need. Whether they have money or don’t have money, whether they have papers or don’t have papers, I believe everybody should feel comfortable seeking health care,” Rabinowitz said. “That is the mission of NUMC.”

Nonetheless, NUMC saw a 2.5% decline in overall patient visits from 2024 to 2025, falling to about 260,000 overall visits. That decrease was driven primarily by an 11.3% decline in visits to NUMC’s emergency room. The number of ER visits fell by about 6,000, down to 46,000 in 2025. NUMC’s general clinic saw a 1% decline, down about 1,200 visits to 154,181, officials said. Its HIV clinic, meanwhile, saw a 7% decrease, down 294 visits to 3,719.

NUMC officials noted that within the ER, a higher percentage of patients are coming in for true emergencies, as opposed to more general care, for which many Long Islanders often have turned to NUMC. That’s a potential indicator, they said, that some area residents are avoiding nonemergency care altogether, due to ICE-related fears.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running for governor against Gov. Kathy Hochul, dismissed the theory that the decline in NUMC visits was related to immigration enforcement concerns, instead pointing fingers at the state’s involvement in leadership changes at the hospital, which took place last June.

“I have instructed my police not to enter local hospitals, schools and houses of worship unless there was an imminent threat to public safety,” Blakeman said in a statement. “It’s no surprise that since Kathy Hochul’s takeover of NUMC people have lost confidence in the hospital’s ability to provide quality care.”

Hochul spokesman Gordon Tepper, however, argued that NUMC’s leadership change has helped – not hurt – the hospital.

“NUMC’s new leadership has already made great strides in returning the focus to patient care and the long-term fiscal stability of the hospital," Tepper told The Point.

Hochul has proposed prohibiting agreements like Nassau’s that allow local police officers to carry out immigration enforcement, and requiring that schools, medical facilities, houses of worship and homes be protected from civil immigration enforcement without a warrant.

“The governor has made her feelings regarding ICE crystal clear, and that includes feeling safe at hospitals across the state,” Tepper said. “Mr. Blakeman obviously has different views concerning ICE agents and what their responsibilities are. For anyone to think that the fear of ICE is fake, they’d have to be living on another planet."

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Let the games begin

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Final Point

Affordability politics arrive in Suffolk

The political buzzword of 2026 is affordability, and on both sides of the aisle, politicians have been repeating the word to connect with voters stressed by high prices on everything from eggs to electricity.

But are Albany and Washington elected officials just paying lip service to affordability issues? Some Long Island elected officials think so.

At the Suffolk County Supervisors Association bimonthly meeting last week, several Suffolk Republican supervisors told Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul’s representatives that she wasn’t making real progress on affordability but rather using the word to woo price-weary voters as she seeks reelection. Hochul is being challenged by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican.

As Hochul’s reps — one of whom was former Suffolk Legis. Robert Calarco — went over the governor’s executive budget, a few supervisors interrupted when affordability came up.

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico, a Republican, told The Point he didn’t think meaningful reform to drive down costs for townships was part of the presentation.

“This is the problem in government, is that people, for the purposes of an election, they tell people they’re working on the hot button issue when actually nothing is getting done ... it’s an election-year ploy,” Panico told The Point.

Some supervisors in attendance told Hochul’s reps, according to Panico and Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter, that the state needed to speed up funding to the towns while increasing state aid to offset rising costs on everything from pension contributions to heavy equipment.

And when the state’s mandated 2% tax cap for municipalities came up, Carpenter, a Republican, told The Point she said towns should be allowed to claim exemptions that school districts can, like debt service.

“We’re just asking for a level playing field,” Carpenter said she told Hochul’s reps. “I appreciated the fact that the governor cared enough to send reps down and make a formal presentation. ... Even though I may not philosophically agree with the governor on some things, I will say she has been rather participatory. She’s easy to reach out to, and that hasn’t always been the case.”

In her State of the State address last month, Hochul mentioned “affordability” or “affordable” 12 times during her 4,900-word speech.

Hochul spokesman Gordon Tepper, in a statement to the Point, tried to put some meat on that bone, saying Hochul delivered “tax relief and record levels of state assistance.” He added that the governor will work with the legislature this session “to build on this record and deliver for local communities across the State.”

Aside from affordability, the supervisors group managed to get a word in about other issues like sewage treatment plants and solid waste. Not sexy, but very Long Island.

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

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