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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Bribes Versus Political Campaign Donations : Who Decides When Money Corrupts The Healthcare System Of New York State ?
Healthcare activists, who are fighting for a restoration of a new Level 1 Trauma Center and full-servi e hospital to replace St. Vincent's, are discovering that the larger healthcare system across New York State is broken. Here's how.
Activists are beginning to demand a single-payer healthcare system in New York to put an end to the constant healthcare cuts, layoffs, hospital closings, and corruption that is endemic in the state’s broken healthcare system. Just this year alone, witness the bribery cases against MediSys chief executive David P. Rosen and New York State Senator Carl Kruger, each of whom were involved in hospital-related corruption. Two other state assemblymen, William F. Boyland, Jr., of Brooklyn and Anthony S. Seminerio of Queens, are also implicated, according to The New York Times.
The Rudin family head a lobbying group that calls itself the Association for a Better New York. They use it as political cover to portray their billion-dollar real estate deals as “civic-minded” projects. There’s nothing “civic” about closing a hospital in order to convert it to luxury condos. Bill Rudin is just another modern-day “Robber Baron.”
In respect of the shady closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, our politicians have failed to restore a full-service hospital. Instead, politicians want to replace St. Vincent’s with an urgent care center. This is a Band-Aid approach to healthcare, and it is unacceptable !
In spite of the corruption that exists in the state funding of hospitals, operatives for Billionaire Bill Rudin claim that Mr. Rudin owes the public nothing in terms of private support, to make up for lack of public funding to support a replacement hospital for St. Vincent's. There are resources available : Go to Wikipedia, and look up the Hill-Burton Act, which provides federal grants and guaranteed loans to improve the nation’s hospital system. Money was designated to states to achieve 4.5 beds per 1,000 people.
Did Christine Quinn Give Up On Saving St. Vincent's In Exchange for Campaign Donations From The Rudin Family ?
In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. During this time, the Rudin family has been trying to salvage a multi-million dollar real estate purchase of the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn has done nothing to restore a hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ?
At what point do bribes mix-and-match with political campaign contributions ?
In a brilliant YouTube video, the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy compares former mayor Ed Koch to Snooki, seeing as how each celebrity can be hired to show up at night club parties -- or at luxury condo conversions of St. Vincent's Hospital -- if the price is right.
It's a Wonderful Life : Christmas Caroling for St. Vincent's Hospital
On Christmas Eve night, joins us as we welcome local residents, who are walking from house to house, singing Christmas Carols.
Activists will be standing outside the closed Bailey Savings and Loan -- I mean, the closed St. Vincent's Hospital -- where we will be singing Christmas Carols and handing out band-aids, because band-aids will be all the healthcare you'll get from the new first aid clinic that will replace St. Vincent's.
You see, old man Potter -- I mean, old man Rudin -- has bought the old St. Vincent's for pennies on the dollar, and he now awaits the New York City Council to give final approval for the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's. Some activists will spend the entire evening outside to demonstrate first hand how emergency care patients have been "left out in the cold" by the Rudin luxury condo conversion.
St. Vincent's Hospital activist bird-dogs billionaire Bill Rudin over controversial luxury condo conversion plan.
Artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy confronts Bill Rudin on West 12th Street. Community anger towards Mr. Rudin has inspired many protests, including a sustained protest and vigil outside the sales office of the new luxury condos. Mr. Rudin has ruthlessly ignored the community’s need for a full-service hospital. Mr. Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy St. Vincent’s real estate, and Mr. Rudin now stands to sell luxury condos and townhouses that, once constructed, are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.
A majority of New York Democrats would vote against a mayoral candidate who opposed paid sick leave and a living wage, according to a new survey to be released today.
From City Hall News : A new survey says a majority of New York Democrats would vote against a mayoral candidate who opposed paid sick leave and a living wage – which could present a problem for Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who scuttled a paid sick leave bill and has avoided taking a public position on a living wage bill.
