Public Forum Seeks to Restore a Hospital at the Site of the Former St. Vincent's Hospital

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, left, and New York City Controller John Liu, below, Are Expected to Join Forum Wednesday Night to Discuss the Next Steps in the Community's Fight to Restore a Hospital at the St. Vincent’s Site

The community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan are invited to join a panel discussion and update on the fight for health care and a full-service hospital. Lawmakers and other government officials were invited to the forum ; it is expected that Mr. Stringer and Mr. Liu will be attending.

The forum will take place Wednesday evening, Feb. 16, from 6 - 8 p.m. at Hudson Guild, which is located on Ninth Avenue, between 17th and 18th Streets. The forum is being sponsored by the Coälition for a New Village Hospital and WestView News.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed. In 2010, North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy and St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village shut down after shady backroom meetings. In 2009, two hospitals in Queens – St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica – went bankrupt. In 2008, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan and Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed. And in 2007, St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan was closed. Separately, one other hospital in Brooklyn, Long Island College Hospital, is on the brink of closing, and the only hope of saving the hospital is if it mergers with SUNY Downstate.

Meanwhile, this is from The New York Post, by way of DNAinfo :

MANHATTAN — New York State hospitals rank 46th in the nation for emergency room visit wait times, with patients waiting an average of five hours to receive treatment, The New York Post reported.

Emergency room wait times increased by 18 minutes between 2008 and 2009 to 296 minutes, Press Ganey, an organization that monitors hospitals, told the Post.

The longer wait times may be due to recent closures of health facilities, such as St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, around Manhattan, the paper reported.

As a result of closures, patients have crowded into other hospitals, increasing waiting times, the Post reported.