The Casualty of Hospital Closings NYC

SEEKING A CURE FOR HOSPITAL CLOSINGS : With more and more hospitals being closed across New York City, where are emergency patients are supposed to go ?

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."

Safety-Net Shredding Rudin Family

The Zone-Busting and Safety Net-Shredding Rudin Family, aided by Political Enablers

The Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital was approved on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, by Amanda Burden, the Park Avenue socialite, who volunteers 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 into luxury condominiums and deluxe townhouses.

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 Luxury Condos Can't Do CPR ! St. Vincent's Community Assembly.

St. Vincent's Town Hall

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.

2012-01-31 St Vincents Community Assembly - Luxury Condos Cant Do CPR

Mayoral Candidate Tom Allon Pledges to Open City Hall to Bloggers, Citizen Journalists

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 17, 2012
Press Contact: Evan Burr (917-686-8554)

Mayoral Candidate Tom Allon Pledges to Open City Hall to Bloggers, Citizen Journalists

Allon Vows His Administration Will Be Most Transparent in NYC History

NYC mayoral candidate Tom Allon pledged today that when he is elected mayor he will open up the City Hall press corps to include bloggers and citizen journalists to an unprecedented extent.

Allon, who is the publisher of a family of community newspapers and a former journalist, vowed to make his administration the most open and transparent in the city's history.

"Why is it that right now City Hall gets to decide who gets credentialed to cover it? That’s like the fox guarding the henhouse. When I am mayor I am going to invite questions from anyone who dedicates themselves to the free and open exchange of information, be it through political blogs like Room Eight, True News, and The Perez Notes, or neighborhood blogs like Boogie Downer in the Bronx, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Queens Crap, Washington Square Park Blog in Manhattan or the Staten Island Treasure Blog," said Allon.

"Citizen journalists like Katia Kelly, Rafael Martinez Alequin, Rock Hackshaw, and Heather Letzkus have become one of the great bulwarks against corruption and incompetence we have in this city. In this age of media consolidation and newsroom layoffs, the Mayor owes it to the public to empower our tremendous community newspapers, ethnic media, bloggers and citizen journalists to ask the questions that matter most to their readers. If sunlight is the best disinfectant, it's time that we let the sun shine in to City Hall."

Allon said that rather than the current system of City Hall and the NYPD making the determination who is a legitimate reporter that he would appoint a nonpartisan, blue-ribbon independent commission of journalists, publishers, civil rights attorneys, and bloggers to determine the criteria for who is eligible for press credentials. He emphasized that public safety and security concerns would not be discounted from the new criteria, but that they would not be used as an excuse to curb the freedom of the press.

* * * *

Unidentified Man Found Unconscious At St. Vincent's Hospital-Martin Luther King Candlelight Vigil

St. Vincent's Hospital MLK Day Candlelight Vigil Becomes Hospital Emergency

An unidentified man passed out on the sidewalk about 25 feet from a candlelight vigil outside of St. Vincent's Hospital tonight during a celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The man, who appeared to be in his 30's, was found laying on the frigid concrete of the sidewalk, along West 12th Street in Manhattan, not far from the Rudin Luxury Condos Sales Office. A passer-by called 911, and vigil participants waited with the stranger, until FDNY EMS rescue crew could arrive.

As the community awaits the decision by Amanda Burden, the Park Avenue socialite who serves as the New York City Planner, on the Rudin luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's, people are having medical emergencies in communities, where hospitals have been closed down. Either that, or hospitals are sealing off "private wings" so that Beyoncé and Jay-Z could give birth to their celebrity baby, Blue Ivy Carter.

If the Rev. Dr. King were still with us today, this is not the kind of society he would have wanted.

Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital? (Pt. 29) - March Against the Health Insurance Industry (Excerpt)

Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital? (Pt. 29) - March Against the Health Insurance Industry (Excerpt) from g. sosa on Vimeo.

10/26/11 - The Hedz-Up Report covers Occupy Wall Street's, Healthcare for the 99%, as they lead a "March Against the Healthcare Industry." Coverage picks up at final destination, St. Vincent's Hospital, as local activists from the Coalition for a New Village Hospital and Hands Off St. Vincents!, prepare to greet the marchers and conduct a teach-in.

Real estate developer Bill Rudin, has purchased the hospital property for approximately $260 million and has announced plans to build luxury condominiums. Also planned is an "urgent care center," which activists argue will leave the area without an adequately equipped full-fledged hospital.

More to come, stay tuned.

In the meantime, please visit our video blog, "Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital?," for our collected reports and future updates:

watclosingstvincentshospital.blogspot.com/

Thanks for watching, help spread the word.

Related articles/links:

Healthcare for the 99% – Occupy Wall St Working Group
owshealthcare.wordpress.com/

Daily Kos - Video of Healthcare for 99%/OWS March in NYC
dailykos.com/story/2011/10/27/1030581/-Video-of-Healthcare-for-99-OWS-March-in-NYC

DNAInfo: Village Hospital Coalition Joins Occupy Wall Street Protesters
dnainfo.com/20111003/greenwich-village-soho/village-hospital-coalition-joins-occupy-wall-street-protesters

DNAinfo.com - Luxury Condos in Former St. Vincent's Building to Hit the Market
dnainfo.com/20110926/greenwich-village-soho/luxury-condos-former-st-vincents-building-hit-market

PNHP - Doctors Support Occupy Wall Street Because Wall Street Is Occupying Health Care
pnhp.org/ows/index.php

Gotham Gazette - St. Vincent's Highlights Crunch for Hospitals Serving the Poor
gothamgazette.com/article/health/20110720/9/3569/

NY Magazine - St. Vincent's is the Lehman Brothers of Hospitals
nymag.com/news/features/68991/

Paul Krugman - NY Times - Patients Are Not Consumers
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/patients-are-not-consumers/

David Brooks - NY Times - Where Are the Liberals?
nytimes.com/2012/01/10/opinion/brooks-where-are-the-liberals.html

Related sites:

Occupy Together
occupytogether.org/

Coalition for a New Village Hospital
demandahospital.blogspot.com/

Hands Off St. Vincent's!
handsoffstvincents.com

Christine Quinn Newsletter 2012

Christine Quinn: Learn the Facts 2012

Community organiser and activist Donny Moss has issued a newsletter summarising just some of the more than 20 protests that the community organised against City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in 2011.

Among some of the newsletter highlights :

• Quinn must be humiliated by the unrelenting protests because, in order to avoid us, she has navigated through piles of garbage bags, entered buildings through basements and used her security detail and handlers to divert our attention so that she could scurry past us without being noticed.
• On December 2nd, the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center released its annual NYC Council Human Rights Report Card. Christine Quinn received a D+, the second to lowest score in the City Council. In addition to voting against human rights bills, Quinn used her power as Speaker to kill bills that had a veto-proof majority of supporters.
• As the NY Times reported in October, "A year ago City Council members tried to push through a living wage in the Bronx and to mandate a few sick days for workers. Christine Quinn ensured each effort ended up baled, tied and set by the BQE for early sanitation pickup."
• One of the most powerful weapons in Quinn's arsenal as Speaker is the discretionary funds -- tens of millions of dollars that Quinn 1) doles out to reward campaign donors and loyal Council Members or 2) withholds from Council members who challenge her political or legislative agenda.
• In March, Christine Quinn strong-armed the City Council members to vote in favor of renaming the Queensboro bridge for former NYC Mayor Ed Koch. Several months later, Mayor Ed Koch endorsed her for Mayor -- two years before the election.

For more information, read the entire Christine Quinn Newsletter 2012.

Christine Quinn Betrays LGBT, Celebrates Cardinal-Designate Timothy Dolan

Christine Quinn Betrays LGBT - Celebrates Cardinal-Designate and LGBT Hater Timothy Dolan

As usual, openly out lesbian New York City Council Christine Quinn has sold out the LGBT community in New York City in exchange for political electability. Last week, Speaker Quinn made congratulatory comments about Archbishop Timothy Dolan's promotion to the position of Cardinal within the Roman Catholic Church, even though His Grace the Archbishop vocally and actively opposed the passage of marriage equality in New York State last year. No wonder that based on Speaker Quinn's lack of integrity on very basic issues, she has been described as "standard political flimflam."

While Archbishop Dolan's promotion to join the College of Cardinals was not a surprise, to The New York Times, let's say, neither should have been how quickly Speaker Quinn betrayed the LGBT community by her expressions of support for Archbishop Dolan.

What measurable, real, and tangible actions have openly lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn taken in respect of LGBT civil rights ?

Let's examine the following further examples of LGBT civil rights violations, to which City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a high-profile openly lesbian politician, has been spineless in her response :

• When over 30 men where being entrapped and were the targets of sexual orientation profiling by the NYPD, what did Christine Quinn do ? That's right, she did nothing to hold the NYPD accountable for their systematic discrimination of LGBTQS men.
• Each year, Speaker Quinn allocates taxpayer money to support hate groups that discriminate against LGBT New Yorkers. Ask yourselves : What is an openly lesbian politician doing by funding groups that discriminate against LGBT New Yorkers ?
• On the evening when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the historic marriage equality bill into law, the NYPD raided the Eagle Bar in yet another demonstration of sexual orientation profiling. What has Speaker Quinn done to hold the NYPD accountable for their systematic discrimination of the gay men patrons of the Eagle ? That's right, she's done nothing.
• After the Obama administration violated the due process rights of an LGBT whistleblower, what did Speaker Quinn do ? She turned the other way and pretended not to look.
• When one of her own staffers, Tony Simone, dropped the F-bomb on gay rights leaders Allen Roskoff and Donny Moss, what did Speaker Quinn do ? She did nothing.
• When Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed the 2005 landmark marriage equality ruling by Judge Doris Ling-Cohan,, what did Christine Quinn do ? BINGO ! She did nothing.

With an LGBT record like this, LGBTQS New Yorkers would do good to question Speaker Quinn's integrity and commitment to LGBT civil rights.

Christine Quinn Described As "Standard Political Flimflam"

In Exchange of Tweets Last Night, Talking Points Memo editor casts New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in dark light.

Josh Marshall, the editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, called Christine Quinn "standard political flimflam," describing his experience with her as "very negative."

The exchange of Tweets was in regards to 2013 mayoral candidate Tom Allon's full-page newspaper advertisement criticising Speaker Quinn over the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

Tom Allon Releases Fierce St. Vincent's Campaign Ad

Tom Allon Shows Courage In Confronting Christine Quinn On St. Vincent's Hospital Closing.

In a fierce new campaign ad, New York City mayoral candidate Tom Allon asks, "Did Christine Quinn Bet Your Life To Become Mayor ?" The headline appears above a screenshot of City Council Speaker Quinn kissing billionaire real estate developer Bill Rudin at an October 18, 2011, speech sponsored by Mr. Rudin's lobbying group, the Association for a Bitter New York.

In the ad, Mr. Allon said :

The cynical backroom deal that led to the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital demonstrates clearly how much New Yorkers have riding on who we elect as our next Mayor.

As long as we have a government that allows the rich and powerful to use their influence to close down desperately needed hospitals and build luxury condominiums, we are all at risk.

I am running for Mayor to bring an end to the era of pay-to-play politics. It’s about time we had a Mayor who put the people’s interests first.