In the 21 months since St. Vincent's Hospital has closed, our political leaders have showed no activity to prevent hospital closings in New York City.
A Beth Israel ambulance was stuck in traffic in front
of a closed hospital in the West Village of Manhattan.
Five hospitals in Brooklyn are in danger of closing, according to The New York Times : Interfaith Medical Center, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, and Brooklyn Hospital Center.
In the case of St. Vincent's Hospital, which closed in 2010, leaving a hole in public health in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, activists are seizing on the irresponsible hospital closings as a way to organise for a single-payer healthcare system : "How can we bring a hospital back to our community ? How can we get true universal healthcare ? Come Join the Discussion ! RSVP at the Facebook page for the St. Vincent's Community Assembly."
The Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital was approved on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, by Amanda Burden, the Amsterdam Avenue socialite, who volunteers in her free time to be City Planner for New York City. Other political enablers have joined Ms. Burden in aiding the Rudin Family's scheme to convert what used to be the only full-service hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center that served the Lower West Side of Manhattan into luxury condominiums and deluxe townhouses.
"Mr. Sheirer was driving to work from his home on Staten Island when he began having chest pains, pulled over at 14th Street and 10th Avenue and called 911. He was taken to Beth Israel Hospital, where he died," reported The New York Times.
Richard J. Sheirer, the former director of New York City's Office of Emergency Management during the September 11th attacks, fell ill a few blocks away from St. Vincent's. Video by Suzannah B. Troy.
Join us on Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 6 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center at 208 West 13th Street in the West Village.
With St. Vincent’s closed, the West Side still has no hospital beds below 57th Street. How can we bring a hospital back to our community ? How can we get true universal healthcare ? Come Join the Discussion ! RSVP at the Facebook page for the St. Vincent's Community Assembly.
This "town hall" is a consensus-based conversation facilitated by HEALTHCARE FOR THE 99%, an OCCUPY WALL STREET working group.
Mayor Bloomberg Defends Beyoncé's VIP Treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital Even As Inequality and Injustice in Healthcare Becomes More and More Pronounced in the Aftermath of the Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.
The power couple and their little bundle of joy, Blue Ivy Carter, have been under fire from angry parents who’ve complained about being blocked from seeing their newborns thanks to airtight security measures for the superstar couple, who reportedly rented out the fourth floor of the hospital for $1.3 million. ...
“If [the hospital] got paid a lot of money and it let them provide services to other people who don’t have insurance or can’t afford it, I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing," he said.
Mayor Bloomberg said during a press conference celebrity or luxury hospital suites can be "an enormous revenue source" at a time when the Mayor keeps cutting the budgets of public city hospitals.
Mayor Bloomberg had more to say about whether celebrities and rich people should get better "services" than lower-class patients. “I don’t think you should keep people from seeing their babies, or whatever, but have different services for people who are full-paying patients," he said. “It’s easy to go and criticize, but somebody’s got to pay.”
Activists from the Healthcare for the 99 Per Cent. Working Group of #OWS gathered in Union Square on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.
Advocates for a true universal healthcare system "for all" gathered at Union Square on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, to call attention to what they said was the inequality in the provision of healthcare in New York City, New York State, and in the United States.
Advocates were joined by members of PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program), HC499% (the Healthcare for the 99 Per Cent. Working Group of #OccupyWallStreet), and by St. Vincent's Hospital activists.
In 1966, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and most inhuman."
After Going on a Decade-Long Spree of Hospital Closings, New York City Michael Bloomberg is Launching a New Desperate Campaign Blitz to Resuscitate His Public Image.
Mayor Bloomberg has launched a Facebook advertising propaganda campaign to counter his growing image of a reckless chief public officer of New York City. He likes to tout his anti-smoking campaign, but how about his record on hospital closings ? If the Rudin Family's Luxury Condo Plan is approved for St. Vincent's by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, then Mayor Bloomberg would be saying that it is O.K. for an entire section of New York City to have no full-service hospital. How can this be a responsible public health care policy ? Mayor Bloomberg needs to stop the Rudin Luxury Condo Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital until a full-service hospital is created.
"Mr. Bloomberg knows that his reputation has taken hard blows in the fight over term limits. But he is apparently betting that the passage of time will restore whatever he may have lost in respectability." -- Clyde Haberman, The New York Times, October 27, 2008.
"Mr. Bloomberg's popularity is high, but his handling of protesters to the 2004 Republican National Convention, when thousands of demonstrators were swept off the streets and detained, is a black mark on his record for many New Yorkers and civil libertarians." -- The New York Times
"For more than a year before the convention, the Police Department monitored Web sites and sent undercover detectives around the nation to collect information on Bush opponents planning to demonstrate in New York. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said the operation helped keep order. " The New York Times, April 3, 2007
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