Here are some of the highlights from last week's well attended town hall to Demand a Hospital at the St. Vincent's site.
Here's Civil Rights Attorney Yetta Kurland exposing some shady dealings involved with the closure.
And here's Eileen Dunn, RN, a longtime St. Vincent's nurse detailing how St. Vincent's management had failed to file paperwork for years. With the result that St. Vincent's employees have been denied unemployment benefits, social security accrual and more.
Later in the evening, New York State Assemblymember Richard N. Gottfried criticized New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The mayor, who likes to get involved in issues that are important to New York City, did not participate in trying to save St. Vincent's, the Hon. Gottfried said.
Dr. David Kaufman explained the differences between "Urgent Care" facilities and a hospital:
And here's the entire evening, captured by David Jr., a community resident.
Suzannah B. Troy took some very moving pictures of the memorial that people have created outside of St. Vincent's Hospital. She posted pictures of the "loving notes thanking Doctors, Nurses and everyone who did their work at St. Vincent’s" on her blog. I understand that people would have feelings of affection and appreciation for the medical staff that saves our lives, when we have medical emergencies. I hope that we also see the medical staff as a necessary first line of defense in terms of first responders to any kind of mass public health or terror emergency. For St. Vincent's wasn't just "merely" a community hospital that served over 60,000 patients per year in its ER, but it was also an important underpinning in New York City's security and defense. It must be recognised that having a hospital in Lower Manhattan is also national security issue.
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