Ringing Opening Bell at NYC Hospitals

After Hurricane Sandy, the only operating hospital below 57th Street in Manhattan was Beth Israel Medical Center, which was partially-functioning on back-up generators.

North Shore-LIJ CEO Michael Dowling said that Hurricane Sandy showed that there was still an excess of hospitals in Manhattan. Is Michael Dowling advocating for the Berger Commission to close more hospitals in Manhattan, such as NYU Langone or Bellevue Hospital ?

In two short days after Hurricane Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg raced to ring the "Opening Bell" at the New York Stock Exchange.

The taboo question that the media are too afraid to ask Mayor Bloomberg is : would St. Vincent's Hospital have helped New York City with accepting patients from the emergency evacuations from Bellevue Hospital, NYU Langone, the VA Hospital, and New York Downtown Hospital ? When will Mayor Bloomberg or Mr. Dowling race to ring an "opening bell" of a new hospital for the Lower West Side of Manhattan ?

After 9 Hospital Closings Under Speaker Quinn, City Will Drop Dead

Queens' Peninsula Hospital Center set to close ; New York Downtown Hospital putting patients on stretchers in the hallway to accommodate unmanageable influx of emergency patients.

"Sources say the Far Rockaway, Queens, hospital will shutter after owing millions to vendors and falling behind on its union benefits funds payments; the closure would cost the area about 1,000 jobs," reported Crain's.

The Queens Crap blog published a post today, indicating that Peninsula Hospital Center had filed a 90-day closure plan, a requirement under the law that was violated when St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010.

Is our social safety net not too big to fail ?

Does nobody in City Council have any concern about the financial collapse of so many hospitals across all five New York City boroughs ?

Does Mayor Michael Bloomberg not care, either ?

Meanwhile, following the illegal closing of St. Vincent's Hospital last year, there reamins only one hospital south of 16th Street in Manhattan, New York Downtown Hospital, which The New York Post has reported as being ''overwhelmed,'' and is leading to an ''emergency-care crisis,'' the newspaper reports.