Planning Meeting Tomorrow!

COALITION FOR A NEW VILLAGE HOSPITAL

Invites you to attend a Planning Meeting Tomorrow:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4TH AT 6:00 PM

OUR LADY OF POMPEII CHURCH (downstairs auditorium)

Corner of Bleecker and Carmine Streets

We will be discussing next steps after last month’s rally, report on the legal fight, and the needs assessment currently being done. Come join, ask questions and get involved!

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.

Coalition for a New Village Hospital holds Planning Meeting

Over 125 people turned up for Thursday night's planning meeting at Our Lady of Pompeii Church in the West Village. In addition to community members, attendees included representatives of numerous community groups – including PTAs, block associations, civil rights groups, civic associations.

The meeting, chaired by Civil Rights Attorney Yetta Kurland, discussed various approaches to our demand for a new village hospital.

Here's a video of Ms. Kurland explaining the state of the legal challenges:

At this point, we were joined briefly by Julie Menin, Chair of Community Board One. Ms. Menin discussed the joint taskforce of Community Boards 1, 2, 3 and 4 on health care – and committed to work towards a hospital for the lower West Side. She also addressed the stresses already being felt on New York Downtown Hospital (formerly Beekman) in lower Manhattan.

Here she is discussing the role these hospitals play in the event of a homeland security emergency.

After these introductory presentations, the bulk of the meeting was composed of community ideas on how to fight back. Some of the consensus ideas were:

• A campaign of Street Actions at the site of old St. Vincent's (more on this soon)
• Work with the Community Boards to help keep the St. Vincent's site designated for hospital use.
• Outreach to elected officials
• Art and Culture installations
• A complaint to the Attorney General's office was circulated.

Things are developing very quickly, so watch this space...