SUNY officials order police to arrest activists trying to save LICH from closure

BREAKING : Bill de Blasio Was Arrested in an Act of Civil Disobedience to Save LICH.

DeBlasio also marched out in cuffs with a bunch of media following. #savelich pic.twitter.com/aLWH8rB3Z9

— Sarah Jaffe (@sarahljaffe) July 10, 2013

New York City public advocate Bill de Blasio was led away in handcuffs after reports that a peaceful demonstration to save Long Island College Hospital from closing turned into an act of civil disobedience.

.@BilldeBlasio being placed under arrest. Put in the back of police van. pic.twitter.com/PbleLR3hbJ

— Erin Durkin (@erinmdurkin) July 10, 2013

A demonstration had been scheduled Wednesday morning to apply political pressure on SUNY management officials. SUNY will decide whether LICH remains open or is closed as part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's radical healthcare cuts to window dress the New York State budget in advance of his expected bid for the 2016 presidential race.

Healthcare activists, hospital employees, and healthcare union officials have been trying for months to appeal for help from politicians from Albany to City Hall, but the state legislative session ended last month with no rescue package, and locally Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn concluded next years budget negotiations without making any provision to save LICH from closure.

In the last few weeks, activists had been holding many demonstrations, rallies, and other acts of protest to draw attention to the plight of Brooklyn hospitals. Since 2006, ten New York City hospitals have either closed or downsized, and the remaining hospitals are over-burnded. Wait times at emergency rooms are escalating, and patients in life-or-death situations are having to take longer and longer ambulance rides to get to the next nearest emergency room. To make matters worse, Gov. Cuomo empaneled a group called the Medicaid Redesign Team to identify three more hospitals to close in Brooklyn.

On Feb. 8, 2011, four community activists were arrested in an act of civil disobedience to save St. Vincent's Hospital, but the community received no support from Speaker Quinn. At a rally outside of Gov. Cuomo's office on Monday, Mr. de Blasio accused Mayor Bloomberg of just walking away from the community after St. Vincent's Hospital closed. St. Vincent's activists don't remember Mr. de Blasio being involved in the herculean effort to first save St. Vincent's and then to later preserve the hospital infrastructure for a replacement hospital. But pressure politics from this year's mayoral campaign season has finally pushed him to take bold action. Many St. Vincent's activists noted that it was about time that Mr. de Blasio took action, after all, he is the city's Public Advocate.

Speaker Quinn accepted $30,000 in campaign donations from Rudin Management Company before she approved the billion-dollar Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital.

Hurricane Sandy Hospital Crisis Grows

From True News From Change NYC :

Closing of NYU and Bellevue Hospitals Because of Sandy Should Have Been A Wakeup Call That NYC Has A Hospital Crisis.

New Yorkers are Getting Sicker and Even Dying (esp. the poor) Because of A Hospital Crisis Made Worse by the Floods . . . Where is the Pols, Media and Activist Outrage?

Nobody Notices Hospital Crisis Or Sandy's Wake Up Call

With Some Hospitals Closed After Hurricane, E.R.’s at Others Overflow (NYT) Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn had 1,100 more emergency patients last month than in November 2011; the increase was mostly attributed to a hospital shut by the storm. * Hospital in Brooklyn Files for Bankruptcy Protection (NYT) Some New York medical centers are adding extra shifts and converting offices and lobbies into space for patients as emergency room visits surge. * Half of Brooklyn hospitals on life support | Crain's New York Business

The Angry New Yorker's Who Demanded Their Rights is Gone

Where are the Mayoral Candidates on the Hospital Crisis?

Why Is There No Movement To Save These Hospitals Like There Was in 1980 Against the Closing of Sydenham Hospital? 3 hospitals closed in Queens, St Vincent's murdered for a Co-op in Manhattan, 5 hospitals in trouble in Brooklyn. The activist and progressives are all over Facebook and twitter demanding pay for fasttfood workers because it is being pushed by unions looking for membership. It is very stranged that these same activists are silent on the health care needs of many of these workers who depend on the hospital system for all their health care needs. Could it be that the help unions provide the reason the activist are supporting their issues?

Interfaith To File For Bankruptcy, May Become Tenth Hospital To Close Under Christine Quinn

Related : J31 Rally to Save Interfaith and LICH outside Gov. Cuomo's Office - Stop Hospital Closings

Interfaith Medical Center Plans To Declare Bankruptcy This Week.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo empaneled a consulting group called the Medicaid Redesign Team headed by investment banker Stephen Berger. The last consulting group headed by Mr. Berger came to be known as the Berger Commission. The tasks of both groups was the same : to identify hospitals to close down, so that New York State could implement cuts to the state's healthcare budget.

In the latest development, it was announced today that Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn plans to file for bankruptcy. The Medicaid Redesign Team has identified three hospitals in Brooklyn, which serve uninsured and underinsured patients for closing ; one of these was Interfaith.

How the Cuomo administration plans to carry out the closings is to merge the financially unstable hospitals together in some combinations, so that that the hospitals can hemorrhage money faster, so that they can end up collapsing under the weight of their combined debts.

Interfaith officials told The New York Times that turning over operational control to Brooklyn Hospital without the state’s first promising the financing needed to keep Interfaith going would be tantamount to a covert plan to close Interfaith in a year and a half or so.

A similar money-losing arrangement was made between a string of hospitals lead by St. Vincent's, which lead to the financial collapse of each hospital : St. Vincent's, St. Johns Queens Hospital, and Mary Immaculate Hospital.

Because the Medicaid Redesign Team's sole purpose has been to make even deeper cuts to the state's healthcare budget, Gov. Cuomo's austerity plan is responsible for the bankruptcy filing. In letters to state officials, Nathan M. Barotz, the chairman of Interfaith's board of trustees, has said that a 2010 cut in Medicaid reïmbursement rates cost Interfaith 40 percent of its inpatient revenue and precipitated its current crisis.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, so many New York City hospitals endured damage. There is a shortage of functioning hospitals right now.

One hospital executive, Michael Dowling, is trying to profit from the disaster that Hurricane Sandy has caused to his competition. Mr. Dowling is head of the parent-holding company of Lenox Hill Hospital. Mr. Dowling opposes opening anymore hospitals, because Lenox Hill Hospital is now making record amounts of money from an influx of patients from the damaged hospitals with which he competes.

NYU Langone Hospital, Bellevue Hospital, and Coney Island Hospital were evaucated after each hospital suffered damage and power failures. None of these hospitals have been able to return to 100% functioning levels. How can it make sense for Gov. Cuomo to keep forcing hospitals to close ?

Related : With Some Hospitals Closed After Hurricane, E.R.’s at Others Overflow

If Interfaith does indeed close, it will become the tenth hospital to close since Christine Quinn became speaker of the New York City Council in 2006.

Healthcare is Election Issue

On May Day Healthcare for the 99% and members of the community march from St Vincent's Hospital to Union Square.

In the face of public healthcare budget cuts and irresponsible and dangerous hospital closings, activists are organizing around the idea that a truly universal, single-payer healthcare system is the only viable option that will provide healthcare for all. Listen to the march participants chant, "Healthcare is a Human Right! Medicare For All!"