STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Many Staten Islanders agree that the borough should have a public hospital.

"No matter if they can afford it or if they can't afford it, everybody deserves a chance to be healthy and get the health care that they need" said resident Margaret O’Connell.

"I think every borough should have a public hospital" said resident Laura Kimmins. "There's a lot of people who don't have insurance or who need care that maybe they can't get at a RUMC."

But with RUMC, or Richmond University Medical Center, under financial strain, the mayor says he's hoping its board will reconsider a deal that would have made it a part of the city's Health + Hospitals corporation.

"This would protect RUMC for the future, give it permanence, give it stability and a lot more support to serve the people of Staten Island," De Blasio said.

RUMC announced this week that it had no plans to become a public hospital, rejecting the city's offer of more than $500 million over the next 10 years, saying the deal would leave Staten Island University Hospital as the borough's only private facility and would create an "inequitable distribution of health care services" for residents.

The board also worried about its ability to recruit and retain doctors and staff as part of HHC. But, the mayor touted the upsides of the city's plan to breathe life into the facility which struggled last year under the burden of the pandemic. 

"[It] also allows RUMC to get tremendous benefits, a better malpractice insurance rate, a medical records systems that's already built out," De Blasio said.

Staten Island Borough President James Oddo, who helped in negotiations, says he's hoping to keep talks for some kind of solution alive.

"The RUMC board and the RUMC leadership has to come to peace with a deal that they can live with but I hope that there's a path because  this is an unprecedented  amount of money," Oddo said.

RUMC leaders released a statement Wednesday standing firm on its decision to stay independent from HHC but said, "We’re always happy to have conversations about how to improve health care for Staten Island and Staten Islanders.”