Staffing woes continue to stall opening of completed Bellevue jail ward
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A unit to hold seriously ill detainees at Bellevue hospital has been delayed for years. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration said in recent weeks that they still don’t have a timeline to open it, but that they are committed to doing so. Rendering via Independent Rikers Commission
By Jacob Kaye
The city still doesn’t have a timeline to open an already-constructed hospital jail ward meant to hold detainees with serious physical illness, despite new leadership in City Hall and the Department of Correction, who say they are fully committed to reversing the massive delay.
City officials at both the DOC and NYC Health + Hospitals told lawmakers in recent weeks that they are unsure when they’ll be able to officially open the doors to the 104-bed outposted therapeutic housing unit at Bellevue Hospital, which was completed over a year ago.
The unit, which was originally supposed to open in 2023, has sat vacant as the DOC has struggled for the past year to figure out a plan to staff it.
But that soon may change.
DOC Commissioner Stanley Richards, who officially began running the city’s troubled jail system about a month ago, told the City Council during a budget hearing on Tuesday that the outposted beds at Bellevue and those planned for two other hospitals, are a priority for both him and Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The commitment to opening the units marks a clear break from the previous administration, which failed to meaningfully move the project – and the overall plan to close Rikers Island – forward.
“Those beds have been on the runway for far too long,” Richards said.
But when asked by lawmakers if he could offer a timeline for when the completed unit would open, Richards said only that he was hoping to “open it as quickly as possible.”
The leadership of the city’s hospital system, which runs Correctional Health Services, similarly was unable to provide an update about Bellevue to lawmakers when asked about it at a separate budget hearing earlier this month.
Though Dr. Mitchell Katz, the president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, initially told the Council during a March 16 budget hearing that the beds would become available by the summer, the senior vice president of Correctional Health Services, Patricia Yang, said otherwise.
“We don't have a firm date yet,” Yang said at the hearing. “But we will have a date soon.”
The delay to the Bellevue unit’s opening – and to the construction of similar units at Woodhull, and North-Central Bronx Hospitals – began long before Mamdani took office.
The units, which are part of the city’s plan to close Rikers Island and open four borough-based jails, saw little movement under Mayor Eric Adams, who largely ignored the effort to close the jail complex where nearly 50 people died during his tenure.
The hospital beds were both meant to lessen the population on Rikers Island – which remains around 2,400 detainees too large for the borough-based facilities – and to provide more humane treatment to detainees suffering from serious illnesses.
Currently, those with illnesses like cancer are bused back and forth from Rikers for treatment – but they don’t always make it to the hospital.
During a two-month period toward the end of 2024, only around 38 percent of people were seen as scheduled at off-island specialty clinics, according to a 2025 report from the Independent Rikers Commission, which crafted the city’s plan to shutter Rikers.
The new units will also be able to treat a handful of detainees with serious mental illness, a group that accounts for a growing percentage of the jail’s overall population.
The Bellevue unit was originally planned to open in the spring of 2023, but construction delays and concerns from state regulators pushed its completion back by several years and also led the city to reduce the planned number of beds from 114 to 104 – the Woodhull unit and North-Central Bronx unit were supposed to be completed in 2024 and 2025, respectively, but the city has yet to begin construction on either.
After the city completed construction on the Bellevue unit last year, a new hurdle arose.
The DOC and CHS were unable to find officers to staff the unit, a delay that in turn prevented them from receiving approval to open it from the state’s jails and prisons oversight agency, the State Commission of Correction.
Last July, CHS officials told the City Council during an oversight hearing that they had yet to submit approval paperwork to SCOC because of the lack of staffing. Around eight months later, it’s unclear how much has changed.
“We face challenges on staffing,” Richards said on Tuesday.
Department of Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards testifies before the City Council on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. Photo by Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit
The DOC referred the Eagle to Richards’ testimony when asked on Wednesday about the status of the SCOC application.
But state approval may be on the horizon.
Yang said last week that she had met with Richards and the SCOC to “resolve any outstanding administrative, policy, and staffing issues that the state might have that holds up the commissioning at Bellevue.”
“Commissioner Richards is really committed to this,” Yang said. “It's really encouraging.”
Zachary Katznelson, the executive director of the Independent Rikers Commission, said he was similarly optimistic that the endless delays preventing Bellevue and the other units from opening would soon cease under the new administration.
“The commissioner is really dedicated to getting these beds open and truly understands how important it is,” Katznelson told the Eagle. “Hopefully any issues that are outstanding can be resolved incredibly quickly, and those beds can open as soon as absolutely possible.”
