Scott Stringer Says We Need a Full-Service Hospital in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.
At a community forum to discuss the fight for a new hospital, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said the community needed a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's.
Lawmakers and other government officials were invited to the forum at Hudson Guild in Chelsea, and, in their stead, they sent representatives. Mr. Stringer was the only major politician to show up in person, and he made a crowd-pleasing speech.
The community meeting took place Wednesday evening, Feb. 16, from 6 - 8 p.m. at Hudson Guild and was sponsored by the Coälition for a New Village Hospital and the WestView News newspaper.
It is almost one year since St. Vincent's Hospital was closed under shady conditions, and, in that time, the Coälition for a New Village Hospital has been leading the fight to bring back a new hospital for the Lower West Side of Manhattan.
In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed. In 2010, North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy and St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village shut down after shady backroom meetings. In 2009, two hospitals in Queens -- St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica -- went bankrupt. In 2008, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan and Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed. And in 2007, St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan was closed. Separately, one other hospital in Brooklyn, Long Island College Hospital, is on the brink of closing, and the only hope of saving the hospital is if it mergers with SUNY Downstate.
