Hospitals in New York could lose $10 billion in federal funding as a result of health care cuts in the 2009 federal budget that President Bush sent to Congress yesterday.

New York City hospitals would lose more than $600 million next year and more than $6 billion over five years, according to a preliminary analysis by the Greater New York Hospital Association.

The $3.1 trillion federal budget proposes nearly $200 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts. As a hub for doctor training, New York hospitals have projected a loss of $4 billion in funding for medical education. Hospitals also could lose $1.5 billion for treating poor and uninsured patients.

In a sharply worded statement, the president of the Healthcare Association of New York State, Daniel Sisto, said the budget “would eviscerate core health care funding areas.”

In a memo sent yesterday to member hospitals, GNYHA’s president, Kenneth Raske, said the group “will be working with Congress to ensure that the President’s budget is ‘dead on arrival.'”

* * *

NYU MEDICAL CENTER OPENS DOWNTOWN CLINIC NYU

Medical Center has opened a $10 million outpatient clinic near Wall Street.

NYU Trinity Centre, a 22,000-square-foot office suite situated at 111 Broadway, will serve the downtown work force and the growing residential community in Lower Manhattan, hospital administrators said. NYU Medical Center, a 720-bed hospital, is anchored by its facilities on First Avenue near the East River.

“We have always had a lot of activity from Lower Manhattan that came up to NYU Medical Center,” the hospital’s vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy, Dr. Andrew Brotman, said. “With the growth of downtown and its resurrection after 9/11, we thought that this would be the perfect time to initiate this.”

* * *

SLOAN KETTERING’S BRAIN CENTER RECEIVES $10 MILLION

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has received $10 million for brain tumor research.

The grant, from James and Marilyn Simons, will fund preclinical trials at the hospital’s Brain Tumor Center, which was established last year. Hospital officials said brain cancer is one of the most challenging forms of cancer to treat because of the “blood-brain barrier,” a physical membrane that prevents chemicals in the bloodstream from entering the brain.

The grant will underwrite studies of brain cancer in animals with the goal of developing new therapies for destroying cancer cells while preserving sensitive brain tissue nearby.

* * *

STUDY: IVF TWINS HAVE HIGHER INCIDENCE OF HEART PROBLEMS Twins conceived through in vitro fertilization have a higher prevalence of congenital heart disease than the general population, researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found.

According to researchers, the prevalence of congenital heart problems among IVF twins is three times higher than the general population, including single babies conceived through IVF.

The findings are based on examinations of 2,000 patients, including 250 women who became pregnant through IVF.

“The increasing twinning seems to be the cause of the abnormality and not IVF per se,” the lead researcher, Dr. Mert Ozan Bahtiyar, said in a statement. “The next step is to explore why this is happening.”

* * *

NEW APPOINTMENTS AT MONTEFIORE, HHC

Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx has named Joel Perlman as executive vice president of finance, a new position at the hospital.

Mr. Perlman, the hospital’s senior vice president of finance since 1988, will oversee the finances for the 1,122-bed hospital system, which has $2.2 billion in annual revenues. The hospital also promoted an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Gary Kalkut, to the position of senior vice presidentchief medical officer.

The city’s public hospital system has named Anne-Marie Audet as senior vice president for quality, a new position within the Health and Hospitals Corporation.

In the role, Ms. Audet will oversee and support quality improvement efforts, officials said at a recent meeting of the hospital system’s board of directors.

esolomont@nysun.com