St. Vincent's hasn't had the easiest of times of late, fair enough. The place owes $700,000,000. That's pretty insane. But the hospital is the only Catholic one in Manhattan, and they take everybody in to help. A true community hospital. And with today's state of healthcare reform or non-reform, people don't have insurance to pay for costly things. How much do you think a broken arm costs to cast up? Can't be cheap. But you can't let people walk around all day with broken arms right? Well St. Vincent's Hospital helps those broken arm people. The hospital helps poor people. And that's the lesson being learned. Helping poor people doesn't pay.

 

And so this group called Continuum Health Partner, which is a non-profit hospital system wants to take over.  The plan they propose is to shut down pretty much EVERYTHING, and turn it into basicall a clinic.  A clinic for around 250,000 or so local residents... hhhhmmmm???? Really?

 

Continuum already run Beth Israel, Roosvelt, St. Luke's, and New York Eye & Ear on Manhattan. This group wants to close all acute health services. See one thing Ephman didn't mention was that St. Vincents is also the only Level One Emergency room in downtown NYC. That would be closed. And how can the already over stressed hospitals absorb the 20,000 surgeries that go on at St. Vincent's a year?  And where are downtown west side residents going to go for real emergency care? 

 

Over the past year or so the hospital has been working with NYC's Landmarks Commission to sell off some land to the Rudin Family. This would have given the hospital TONS of money to rebuild a new and modern facility, and keep the place very competitive. BUT, the local community was outraged at the plans. And morons like Susan Sarandon and husband Tim Robbins made statements about how the hospital no longer serves the community etc.. and that “would not want to bring my children there”. So people listen to things like that and believe that this amazing institution is no longer viable. Sarandon and Robbins are lucky and can afford the finest healtcare in the world... but what about the homeless man who got a bottle cracked on the side of his head by some drunk frat boy? Is Susan and Tom going to pay for stitches for this guy up at Roosevelt? Doubt it. So Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins should just keep their moronic mouths shut. Ephman's lucky he can afford the finest in healtcare (and prevention), but he sure wants this place to stay open.

 

The hospital's also cut over 300 jobs, scaled back beds and services, etc... But the place is still losing $5 - $8 million a year. It was nice that the other day Gov. David Patterson gave about $6,000,000 but that's just a drop in the bucket.

 

Alright so what can be done to help save St. Vincent's Hospital? First off if you're on Facebook you can join the Save St. Vincent's campaign here. And then you can go over to savestvincents.com/ and print out the sample letters and send them to some of the elected officials that's listed. But really this hospital is going to be saved only if the Board of Directors, elected officials, and it's main lenders TD Commerce and GE Capital can come to an agreement. A realistic one. Those lenders are owed a lot of money and you can't blame them for being pissed off and wanting at least some of their money back. Just imagine how pissed off St. Vincent's going to be when he finds out his hospital is shut down? Pretty mad Ephman bets.