Governor George Pataki (R-NY) signed a law that will give $75 million in federal and state funding to Westchester Medical Center to help secure the fiscal stability of the hospital.

The hospital has had a gloomy financial picture in the last few years by running large deficits resulting in layoffs of nurses and other personnel. Now the state has agreed to increase the Medicaid reimbursements it makes to the hospital by $25 million a year for the next three years. Pataki was hesitant to sign off on the bill in the past, but says the hospital has put in cost controls and a new management team.

The attempt to bring that financial relief was a bipartisan effort led in part by State Senator Nick Spano (R-Yonkers). Spano says the bill was critically important to the health care of people in the seven-county region that the hospital serves. Westchester Medical Center officials say it has responded to calls to improve financial record keeping and cost cutting where appropriate.

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