Coalition for a New Village Hospital Responds to Senator Duane’s Forum

Last Friday, Senator Thomas K. Duane held for a forum entitled "How Can We Get Back a Hospital for Our Community". The forum was a direct response to our work marching in the streets, fighting in the court, and organizing to demand that our hospital be restored.

Though some of the panelists invited by Senator Duane attempted to tell us we no longer need a hospital, Eileen Dunn, representing the Nurses Union, made it clear that we must we have a hospital on the Lower West Side and that if we make our voices heard, we can make it happen.

Perhaps most incredible was one of the panelists' response when asked what a resident should do if they were experiencing a heart attack or some other emergency.

Please see the clip below captured by George Sosa, a documentarian who covered this meeting to see what the "health advocate" had to say:

NYS Senator Thomas Duane's Health Care Education Panel 5/21/10 (Clip 1) from g. sosa on Vimeo.

Below is the Coalition’s answers to some of the questions posed at Senotr Duane’s forum.

WHY A HOSPITAL?
An urgent care center cannot meet the public health and safety needs of this community. It will not be able to offer level 1 trauma, an emergency room or related intensive care and hospital beds needed. Nor would it support the complex web of health care this community depended on with St. Vincent's and needs. This includes but is not limited to pediatric, oncology, HIV/AIDS and birthing services. A hospital will also be able to bring income to our City and the State through Federal funding, and other sources, not available to an urgent care center.

WHY THE ST. VINCENT'S LOCATION?
St. Vincent's location is centrally located, and already has hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure for a hospital. It will be significantly easier to renovate and reuse and will comport with the look, feel and needs of the community. It is not true that St. Vincent's past debts will adversely impact a new hospital for being at this site. In fact, because St. Vincent's is in bankruptcy, its past debts will be discharged and a new hospital would be able to acquire the property at a potentially greatly reduced price. Ideas to promise a hospital in the future at some other time would only be dangling a carrot that would be lost in vague real estate development schemes and would not put our health and safety first. It would also take years. In the meantime we would have lost the zoning for a hospital at the St. Vincent's site. If we can't open an active hospital at the site of a recently closed hospital, how are we going to open it anywhere else? We should not lose this opportunity.

WHY IS IT POSSIBLE?
Nay-sayers will tell you that it's not possible, that there is too much debt, that no entity is interested and that there are already too many hospital beds in Manhattan. This is far from the truth. First, the debt will be discharged. A hospital will provide more revenue streams than an urgent care center, and properly managed, especially given changes in national health care, could be a significant financial asset to the community. Second, there have been and continues to be many entities interested in opening a hospital at the St. Vincent's site, and it is up to our leaders to bring them to the table and find a way to do this. Finally, while there may be communities lucky enough to have too many hospital beds, we have far too little. In fact, we have none. We have a right to health care, and hospital beds and emergency care. And these vital services must be properly apportioned in all neighborhoods throughout Manhattan, including ours.