Downtown Hospital Needs Lifeline ; Calls to Action on Single Payer and Fracking

From the Demand A Hospital (St. Vincent's activists) e-mail list : 

Begin forwarded message:

From: Demand A Hospital <demandahospital@gmail.com>

Subject: NEWS ALERT : Downtown Hospital on brink of collapse ; plus, CALLS TO ACTION on Healthcare and Fracking

Date: 28 janvier 2013 21:00:18 UTC-05:00

To: Demand A Hospital <demandahospital@gmail.com>

Reply-To: demandahospital@gmail.com

Dear All :

NEWS ALERT.  From our friend, Barbara Ruether, that Downtown Hospital has been on the verge of financial collapse and will be acquired by New York-Presbyterian.

This article points out how Downtown Hospital had to double the beds in the neonatal intensive care unit in 2010, which was when St. Vincent's Hospital was closed.  Downtown Hospital could not afford the expansion of maternity care, but the State Department of Health gave Downtown Hospital no extra support in the face of the closing of St. Vincent's.  In contrast, Medicaid reimbursement rates were cut by Gov. Cuomo.  It is almost three years since St. Vincent's closed, and we are still dealing with the severe effects to public health.  And the State Department of Health still has no plan to equally fund all of our hospitals and medical centers, so that each hospital can fully meet the needs of all patients.  

Link : http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130127/HEALTH_CARE/301279973

NY-Presbyterian to bail out Downtown Hospital

Lower Manhattan's last medical center on brink of collapse.

 

By Barbara Benson @Barbara_Benson

January 27, 2013 5:59 a.m.

The last remaining hospital in lower Manhattan, financially unstable after years of operating losses, is being bailed out by a wealthy uptown white knight, Crain's New York Business has learned.

New York-Presbyterian Hospital has asked state health officials for permission to acquire New York Downtown Hospital, the only institution below 14th Street since St. Vincent's Hospital closed in 2010. Downtown "has experienced persistent, significant financial difficulties that threaten its future viability," New York-Presbyterian officials wrote in December in a request to the New York State Department of Health. '[Downtown Hospital] is projected to have a significant operating loss in 2013, unless the current situation is changed."

Downtown will become the sixth campus of New York-Presbyterian. Currently a 180-bed community hospital, Downtown may look very different as a campus of an uptown owner, although it was not clear late last week what plans the huge health system has for Downtown. "[The facility will] transition into a sustainable and financially feasible model of care," according to New York-Presbyterian's application to the state.

The proposed deal seems similar to the transaction struck last week between Montefiore Medical Center and New York Westchester Square, a bankrupt Bronx community hospital. Both Montefiore and New York-Presbyterian are buying financially troubled community hospitals. Under Montefiore's ownership, Westchester Square will cease being a hospital and will have only emergency, surgical and primary care services.

Unlike its Bronx counterpart, Downtown will stay a hospital, simply because lower Manhattan can't do without one. Manhattan overall has 6.3 hospital beds per 1,000 residents. Lower Manhattan has a paltry 0.57. New York-Presbyterian executives believe they can save Downtown by improving the "quality, delivery and efficiency of the existing services."

"Our plan is for Downtown to remain a community hospital," said a New York-Presbyterian spokeswoman, declining to elaborate further. Jeffrey Menkes, Downtown's president and chief executive, declined to comment.

Downtown has been in the New York-Presbyterian health system's sprawling network since 2006 but is a separate corporate entity. Downtown has struggled for years, even selling off a parking lot to developer Bruce Ratner in 2004 to raise cash.

New York-Presbyterian, meanwhile, is a behemoth with nearly $4 billion in revenue. It employs some 20,000 workers, including 6,000 doctors, and has nearly 2,300 beds.

Heavily reliant on Medicaid

The uptown health system expects to be able to absorb Downtown's losses and assume all its outstanding debt. Under new ownership, Downtown would become a "financially viable division of NYP Hospital," according to the state filing.

New York-Presbyterian blames Downtown's financial collapse on federal and state reimbursement cuts and the hospital's inability to either boost revenue or reduce costs. Downtown is heavily reliant on revenue from Medicaid, the government program for low-income and disabled people, which covers 45% of the patients it discharges. Among patients treated in the emergency department, 20% are uninsured.

Downtown also has been forced into the red by maternity care. Between 2002 and 2011, the number of obstetric patient days grew about 3.3% a year, prompting the hospital to convert eight regular beds to maternity beds, for a total of 24. That move followed a doubling of beds in 2010 in the neonatal intensive care unit. Now the neonatal IC and maternity units lose more than $1 million a year, thanks to high staffing and operating costs, pricey medical malpractice insurance and low reimbursement rates.

Despite that shaky financial foundation, Downtown is the only hospital serving the 314,273 New Yorkers who live below Houston Street—not to mention the daily surge of 750,000 people who work in the area. And once the September 11 Memorial and 1 World Trade Center come online, those numbers will spike even more.

Downtown evacuated before Superstorm Sandy hit, based on the assumption that lower Manhattan would lose electrical power. It suffered no damage beyond the loss of revenue for about a week. And a good thing, too: In early January, more than 20 passengers from a ferry crash in lower Manhattan were treated at Downtown.

A version of this article appears in the January 28, 2013, print issue of Crain's New York Business as "NY-Presby to bail out Downtown Hospital".

CALL TO ACTION / HEALTHCARE.  Please contact the new State Senator Brad Hoylman.  He has been assigned to the Investigations and Government Operations Committee, which is charged with investigating the state's infrastructure collapse in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  Please contact Sen. Hoylman with your concerns about the lack of adequate full-service hospital care in New York City : 

http://www.nysenate.gov/senator/brad-hoylman

District Office

322 Eighth Avenue, Suite 1700

New York, NY 10001

United States

Phone: (212) 633-8052

Fax: (212) 633-8096

Albany Office

Room 413, Legislative Office Building

Albany, NY 12247

United States

Phone: (518) 455-2451

Fax: (518) 426-6846

Here is information to read before you contact State Sen. Hoylman :  please make a plug for the single payer bill that is being discussed and reviewed by the state legislature.  

Link :  http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/january/single-payer-system-is-only-way-to-keep-health-costs-down

CALL TO ACTION / FRACKING.  From our friends Barbara Ruether and Carol Yost come word about this invitation from CREDO Action :  Everybody is being asked to show up to an anti-fracking demonstration outside Gov. Cuomo's Manhattan offices : 

Governor Cuomo has until February 13 to decide whether he will lift New York's fracking moratorium.1 If he doesn't lift it, he will have to announce another major procedural delay.

That gives us less than a month to put overwhelming pressure on Governor Cuomo to maintain the current moratorium on fracking. Our friends at New Yorkers Against Fracking are organizing a rally at the governor's office in New York City to tell him to ban fracking forever. Will you join them?

What : Rally to ban fracking at Governor Cuomo's NYC office 

When : Friday, February 8, at noon 

Where : Governor Cuomo's office, 633 Third Avenue, Manhattan (between East 40th and 41st streets) 

Thank you for all that you do.

Christine Quinn and the Spectra Pipeline Disaster

Christine Quinn has refused to meet with her constituents about the big dig project in her district, which is for the dangerous pipeline carrying fracked gas. Residents have engaged in civil disobedience, lying on the ground in front of the back hoes to prevent the digging. If a catastrophic explosion takes place in NYC as it has in other areas, we don't even have a hospital on the entire lower west side of Manhattan. It's a perfect storm.

Here's an excerpt from the article in today's Village Voice :

"We have 15,000 to 17,000 people living in a square mile. The human damage and the real property damage if this thing were to explode would be almost incalculable. It's not just the crater: the heat radiates out along the surface of the ground, and these explosions are so hot that if you try to bring emergency vehicles out to the area, those vehicles would melt. Running this pipeline under the city would be like putting a small-grade neutron bomb beneath the streets."

Information from this post originated at : the Defeat Christine Quinn Facebook page.

Gov. Cuomo's Desperate Primal Scream For Political Attention (And For Political Cover)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo went on a verbal tirade during his State of the State speech last week, stopping short of foaming at the mouth, calling for gun control as a distraction from the fact that Gov. Cuomo is trying to close more New York City hospitals during the healthcare crisis created by Hurricane Sandy and the flu epidemic.

#NewYorkMRT #BergerCommission

Epidemic #flu deaths. Are there enough hospitals post #Sandy, post @newyorkmrt, post #BergerCommission ? @nygovcuomonytimes.com/2013/01/12/hea…

— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) January 11, 2013

Who Is Josh Isay ?

The Man Pulling The Levers, Turning The Knobs, And Flipping The Switches Behind The Curtain

Josh Isay is New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's campaign spokesman. Mr. Isay is a major political consultant in New York and Albany, with an outlet in Washington. He is one of Sen. Charles Schumer's main political consultants and advisors. So, when we wonder : why is it that no matter who gets elected, nothing seems to change, it is because the paid political consultants are the ones who keep pushing politicians into certain agendas that make them "electable." Who is advising Speaker Quinn to make these backroom deals, to keep NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, in spite of the fact that we need a federal commission to investigate the NYPD ?

When all of us keep working to demand reforms from government, who are the people behind the scenes, who are saying, "No." We only see Christine Quinn, but do we ever know to take a look at who is Josh Isay. Josh Isay worked for Bill Rudin. When the community kept demanding a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's, Josh Isay was advising Christine Quinn that it was O.K. to make the community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan into paws in their game to help Josh Isay's other clients, the Rudin Family. And when we wonder what happened to Speaker Quinn's former progressive roots, all you have to do is to look at her political advisors. If you vote for Speaker Quinn, because you are under the impression that you are going to get the "old" Christine Quinn of 13 or 14 years ago, then I invite you to please take a look at who decides what Speaker Quinn is allowed to do.

Read more : Who is Josh Isay ?

Christine Quinn - Headline Clippings Media Kit

Christine Quinn - In The Headlines - Newspaper Political Coverage Summary

Mental Healthcare Crisis In New York Caused By Spree Of Hospital Closings

Still no holiday wishes from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to the communities affected by all the hospital closings in New York City, but here's an update from The New York Times : Hurricane Shows Fragility of City’s Mental Health System

Grumpy Cat Won't Save New York City ; Neither Will Christine Quinn

The #GrumpyCat Wont Save #NYC From #HospitalClosings Neither Will @chriscquinn christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2012/12/Grumpy… twitter.com/stopchrisquinn…

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) December 21, 2012

New York Politicians Close Hospitals, Endanger Public Health

Update On Hospital Activism In New York City Following Hurricane Sandy Aftermath, Berger Commission Scorched Earth Campaign, and Medicaid Redesign Team Destruction

The latest article about the hospital closings in New York City caused by Hurricane Sandy shows that the irresponsible Berger Commission and Medicaid Redesign Team actions to close down hospitals is endangering public health.

The math is unforgiving: people get sick, and they now have nowhere else to go, a problem exacerbated by the shutdown of St. Vincent’s hospital in the West Village. Last year, emergency rooms at the city’s Bellevue Hospital Center and the private NYU Langone Medical Center saw nearly 150,000 patients combined, according to state Department of Health data. In November alone, the third busiest month for both hospitals, more 14,000 patients received care. And the lion’s share are now being cared for by Beth Israel. (The New York World)

Note : the closing of St. Vincent's wasn't only tied to the attitude up in Albany to close hospitals under the severe safety net-shredding Berger/MRT austerity budget cuts, but also due to the self-seeking motivations by politicians, such as New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Some of the St. Vincent's activists have launched a letter-writing campaign to newspapers ; Gov. Cuomo ; and to Dr. Shah, the health commish.

Urgent care needed
Manhattan: Rep. Gregory Meeks and Anthony Weiner’s guest column on the need for a hospital to serve the Rockaways, especially after Sandy, points up the need for a safety net everywhere (“The Rockaways, on solid ground,” Nov. 28). The lower west quadrant of Manhattan has had no hospital since St. Vincent’s closed. In addition, several nearby hospitals were forced to shut down temporarily because of Sandy. We need well-constructed, full-service hospitals in good strategic positions to serve communities and avoid storm damage. -- Carol F. Yost

Despite Public Health Risks Caused By Hurricane Sandy, Gov. Andrew Cuomo Is Still Dangerously Obsessed With Closing More Hospitals.

Meanwhile, given the dire hospital situation in Brooklyn (Interfaith Files For Bankruptcy ; Half of Brooklyn hospitals on life support), nobody knows if the healthcare money from Hurricane Sandy aid will be used to make sure that we equally meet the healthcare needs of patients across all five boroughs.

When Hurricane Sandy struck, NYU Langone was in the middle of fundraising for a $3 billion renovation/upgrade. Few hospitals have those kinds of resources.

But of the first $200 million in federal aid receive for hurricane relief, Langone received $114 million. (NY Daily News) * How are politicians prioritising which medical centers get funded ? Based on need, or based on the corruptive influence of special interests ?

No word yet on whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo will set aside some of the billions in hurricane relief aid to fund a healthcare system that will equally meet the healthcare needs of patients across all five boroughs of New York City, much less the resumption of operations at Bellevue and Coney Island hospitals.

Look for healthcare activists to escalate their protests, to push back on these irresponsible healthcare cuts that impact poor people. Research shows that because we do not have a truly universal, single-payer healthcare system, the network of fractured healthcare providers that we do have do not make available healthcare services to everybody, equally. One of the leading reasons that poor people rely on hospitals or emergency rooms for healthcare is because there are few physicians with medical practices in their neighborhoods, much less a true means for poor people to afford primary healthcare. Given that Gov. Cuomo is now targeting the less wealthy central neighborhoods of Brooklyn for hospital closings, the governor is gutting the few remaining safety net healthcare services still available to the uninsured and underinsured. How much can the governor cut healthcare before people start suffering for lack of emergency medical treatment ?

Alec Baldwin : Christine Quinn has "blood on her hands," because she changed term limits

Video: Alec Baldwin Says Christine Quinn Is "Untrustworthy," Has "Blood On Her Hands"

Alec Baldwin dropped by CNN's Piers Morgan program last night and he said that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is "untrustworthy." Unfortunately, Mr. Baldwin didn't mention the post-Hurricane Sandy risk to public health following closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, but he did say that Speaker Quinn has "blood on her hands" from the over-turning of term limits. (read more : The Gothamist)

Piers Morgan : The last time we spoke, you were flirting with the idea of possibly running for mayor of New York. Are you still flirting with it ?

Alec Baldwin : No, because to do so - I mean, I was convinced, and people told me - although it was something that I would have loved to have done, truly, you would have to take about a year and a half of your life to do nothing but to raise money. And I didn't have time, because I'm doing the TV show now, and I have other commitments. But I'm very interested in what the post-Bloomberg New York will look like.

Piers Morgan : Who would you like to see of all the names you have heard in the frame outside of yours ?

Alec Baldwin : Probably Bill de Blasio. Right now, I'd have to say Bill de Blasio.

Piers Morgan : Why ?

Alec Baldwin : Well because, first of all, I start looking at the other candidates, all of whom have good qualities. The thing that concerns me most is obviously about Quinn. I've been very outspoken about Quinn, who's a lovely person. But she certainly is Bloomberg's hand-picked successor. And I resent that to some degree that Bloomberg feels he needs to control the fate of City Hall and of Gracie Mansion beyond his term. He already over-turned a voter-approved referendum that had term limits for two terms. Quinn has that blood on her hands. She was the one, who single-handedly killed the voter referendum at Bloomberg's behest and gave him a third term. And I was very, very upset about that. And I just don't think that Quinn is trustworthy. I think that she's a very, very - she's a very nice person, I've met her. But in terms of her political aspirations, she's a very untrustworthy person. She's very, very self-seeking.

2013 NYC Mayoral Dowry

In 2006, when she was elected to become Speaker of the New York City Council, Christine Quinn turned to help from Vito Lopez in Brooklyn, for the votes of Brooklyn councilmembers, in an effort to thwart Bill De Blasio, who (no surprise) failed in his campaign to become Speaker. Like then, Speaker Quinn is now turning to extending favours to Mr. Lopez. Only now, what is at stake is not the speakership, but the mayoralty.

Speaker Quinn needs to pump the political machine in Brooklyn for votes, because she has angered so many voters in her own City Council District over community-crushing development that is allowing New York University to overwhelm the special social fabric of Greenwich Village, that closed St. Vincent's Hospital, and that is going to destroy the character of Chelsea Market.

And, in exchange, Speaker Quinn is being suspected of delivering to Mr. Lopez a redistricted seat in Brooklyn, to give him a soft landing, once he gets kicked out of the New York State Assembly.

Bill Rudin Hospital Evacuations and NYC Marathon Reality Check

Bill Rudin said that it would be safe to close St. Vincent's Hospital, which was the only Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in the Lower West Side of Manhattan. He and his billion-dollar real estate development company got easy building permits, zone-busting waivers, and approvals from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. At the time, Mr. Rudin and Speaker Quinn said that if people in Lower Manhattan became sick, or if there was a mass civilian trauma event, patients could be transported to Bellevue Hospital, which was the next closest Level I Trauma Center.

But the aftermath of hospital evacuations at NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals following destruction by caused by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital.

Note that the NYC Marathon would have three giant electricity generators, which would be used for the media tent, meanwhile, NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals had to be evacuated due to backup generator failures.

Watch this NBC News report about the hurricane destruction. Note that Mr. Rudin is a sponsor of the NYC Marathon, and he wants the Marathon to still take place this week-end, even though first responders haven't yet finished recovering all the dead bodies on Staten Island, or, for that matter, ensuring public safety or providing emergency care to the people rendered homeless by the tsunami of the storm surge and flooding.

Hurricane Sandy - Bellevue, NYU, and Coler Hospital Evacuations - Political Accountability

Who is politically accountable for the failure of the emergency management plan in response to Hurricane Sandy that lead to infrastructure failure at New York City hospitals ?

Following the infrastructure failure of critical hospitals in New York City because of flooding and storm surge associated with Hurricane Sandy and related power failures, some healthcare activists began to demand answers for the failure of New York City's emergency management planning. The fault does not lie with the doctors and medical staff at the impacted hospitals ; rather, the politicians in charge of the city's emergency management plan must account for this irresponsible and dangerous situation. How could it be that New York City's resources would prioritise reopening business when critical hospitals could be left in the dark ? One activist has posted a new YouTube video requesting political accountability for the dangerous risks posed to public health by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's lack of real emergency planning.

Video Link : http://youtu.be/ggjOOjbTKZs

Background

In the community effort to demand a replacement hospital for St. Vincent's, politicians imposed on the community the burden of participating in a needs assessment to determine if a full-service hospital was required in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

"The hospital evacuations following the destruction by Hurricane Sandy expose the risks of the Rudin Condo Conversion Plan approved for St. Vincent's Hospital," said Louis Flores, an activist who produced this YouTube video. "New York City needs a Level I Trauma Center and full-service hospital in the Lower West Side for disaster recovery efforts. And New York City needs real resources to improve the infrastructure of all of our hospitals, including Coler Hospital on Roosevelt Island and SUNY Downstate Hospital in Brooklyn."

Hurricane Irene

In 2011, St. Vincent's activists organized a mass civilian trauma event exercise to demonstrate what grassroots community activists described was a major risk to public health : where would sick and injured patients receive emergency and trauma care in the event of a major national disaster under conditions that had created an irresponsible geographic distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan.

See related link : http://thevillager.com/villager_443/traumadrama.html

Hurricane Sandy

In the time leading up to and following the landfall of the effects of Hurricane Sandy, the infrastructure of full-service hospitals on the East Side of Manhattan has failed. Hospital patients were forced to be evacuated from NYU Langone and Bellevue Hospitals.

To Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, to City Planner Amanda Burden, Brad Hoylman, Bill Rudin, and to the Partnership for New York, where are New Yorkers supposed to go now, in case of a medical emergency ?

Murray Hill Flooded Near Bellevue Hospital Hurricane Sandy

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Hurricane Sandy Exposes Risks Of Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

Bellevue Hospital Without Power ; Backup Generators Failing Due to Floods ; No Level I Trauma Center Below Midtown Since St. Vincent's Hospital Was Converted Into Luxury Condos By Rudin Family.

Bellevue hospital can't get the generators running, 2 ft water in the basement -- FDNY scanner

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) October 30, 2012

The area near Bellevue Hospital in Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan is flooded. According to this Twitter posting, 34th Street and First Avenue is under water.

Unbelievable. Be safe friends. RT @shamir_kNot just lower Manhattan - this is 34th and 1st i104.photobucket.com/albums/m166/ow… (Murray Hill...)

— Emily Kuhn (@EmKuhn) October 30, 2012

Chelsea Building Collapse Hurricane Sandy

Related : NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission #EPICFAIL

Related : Related : Hurricane Sandy - Political Accountability For Hospital Evacuations

Across the street from 92 8th Avenue where building facade collapse just happened. (ok to use, plz credit me) twitter.com/MegRobertson/s…

— Meg Robertson (@MegRobertson) October 29, 2012

Fire and rescue personnel respond to a partial building collapse in Chelsea on Eighth Avenue, between 14th and 15th Streets. On local news reports, the building was shown to be missing the front façade of the building.

MAN 2-ALARM 92 8TH AVE, MULTIPLE DWELLING BUILDING COLLAPSE,

— FDNY (@FDNY) October 29, 2012

The building collapse took place less than five blocks from the former St. Vincent's Hospital. If people were hurt, they no longer have a Level I Trauma Center or full-service hospital at St. Vincent's since New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn approved the luxury condo conversion plan by the Rudin Family.

I see 8 fire trucks and many police cars and vans #sandy 14/8 twitter.com/gilgul/status/…

— Gilad Lotan (@gilgul) October 29, 2012

Yankee Stadium Bailout But Not For St. Vincent's Hospital

Early this morning, Tom McDonald was hosting Sports on 1 on NY1, when a gentleman called into the sports TV show. The caller complained about how governments gave the owners of the new Yankee stadium complex hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies, but yet found no money to bail out St. Vincent's Hospital.

Mr. McDonald brushed off the criticism, saying that the new Yankee Stadium was good for tourism and that funding healthcare or keeping hospitals solvent were not important uses of taxpayer money.

Occupy Activists Brilliantly Infiltrated Koch Brothers Anti-Occupy Rally

From The Guardian :

A conservative rally billed as an opportunity to "stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists" fell flat on Thursday when it was co-opted by members of Occupy Wall Street.

Supporters of Americans for Prosperity, a Tea Party-esque group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, gathered at the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan to demonstrate against both Occupy Wall Street and President Obama.

But almost half of the sparse crowd were Occupy Wall Street protesters, smartly dressed and bearing signs parodying Americans for Prosperity's ultra-conservative message.

Read more : Occupy activists commandeer anti-Occupy Wall Street rally

Rosie O'Donnell Has Heart Attack ; SVH Luxury Condo Fears Ambulance Response Times

Earlier today, Rosie O'Donnell blogged about having had a heart attack last week. Earlier this year, Mr. O'Donnell purchased a luxury condo from the Rudin family in the complex that used to be St. Vincent's Hospital, before it closed. Everybody is glad that Rosie is doing better, and we all wish her a speedy recovery. Some community activists hope that Ms. O'Donnell will see her heart attack as a wake-up call to create a full-service, Level I Trauma center in the Lower West Side. With the Rudin family's luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, there is now no trauma-emergency care in the entire Lower West Side of Manhattan.

About the EMS response and transport time that people live in fear in the West Village, the artist and political blogger, Suzannah B. Troy, wrote that Ms. O'Donnell "would not have made it to Beth Israel like Richard Scheirer --- Rudy Giuliani's guy that died because he had a stroke and did not make it from the West Village where there is no St. Vincent's Hospital -- no trauma level 1 hospital."

2011-12-25 Bill Rudin Robber Baron Band-Aid Flyer

(CBS News) Rosie O'Donnell says she is "lucky to be here" after suffering a heart attack last week.

O'Donnell, 50, detailed the experience on her blog Monday, saying that she helped lift an "enormous woman" out of her car on Aug. 14 - and that a few hours later, her chest ached, her arms were sore, she became nauseous and had clammy skin.

She initially thought she had pulled a muscle, she continued, but then added in her free-verse writing style, "Maybe this is a heart attack/i googled womens heart attack symptoms/i had many of them/but really? - i thought - naaaa."

O'Donnell said she took a few aspirin ("Thank god/saved by a tv commercial/literally") and went to a cardiologist the next day.

She said her coronary artery was 99 percent blocked. A stent was inserted.

"They call this type of heart attack/the Widow maker/i am lucky to be here," she wrote. "Know the symptoms ladies/listen to the voice inside/the one we all so easily ignore/CALL 911/save urself."

A rep for O'Donnell told Us Weekly that she is now "home and resting comfortably." Earlier this month, she revealed that her fiancee, Michelle Rounds, was diagnosed with desmoid tumors.

The comedian recently hosted "The Rosie Show" on the Opera Winfrey Network. It was canceled in March.

Fran Lebowitz Criticises Mike Bloomberg Over Hospital Closings

Read Also : Fran Lebowitz And Frank Rich At The Town Hall : A Review Of The State Of The Union Conversation

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At NYUFASP book launch, Fran Lebowitz slammed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bill Rudin.

Fran Lebowitz denounced New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's record on hospital closings in a speech about the larger issues of mega, zone-busting real estate development deals that are destroying the social fabric of New York City

At 10:53, Ms. Lebowitz begins to speak about the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. She describes Bill Rudin as one of the mayor's best friends.

When St. Vincent's Hospital closed, I said, "Where is that mayor ? Where's that health conscious mayor -- that mayor, who doesn't let Fran smoke a cigarette in a restaurant ? Where is that mayor ? Not a sound out of that mayor, when they closed the only hospital in the entire neighborhood. And I said, "Wait until you see, who ends up with that property, which is now way too valuable to use as a hospital. Billy Rudin is going to end up with that property," and he did. And he is one of the mayor's best friends. Okay, how many hospitals did this mayor close ? How many hospitals closed under him ? Public health is what the mayor is in charge of.

The purpose of her speech was the book launch of 'While We Were Sleeping : NYU and the Destruction of New York' at McNally Jackson bookstore in SoHo.

Make a pledge today to support Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn on Kickstarter.

Dr. Daniel Lugassy At A SCOTUS ACA Reaction Rally Outside St. Vincent's Hospital

Dr. Daniel Lugassy participates in a speak-out at a rally for a single-payer healthcare system outside of the closed St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. The Affordable Care Act will not end the financial crisis that can devastate patients, should they cannot afford to pay for their healthcare. CNN reported that medical bills lead to more than 60% of bankruptcy filings in the U.S.

Source : http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance

Beth Rudin DeWoody Foundation Funding ?

Is Beth Rudin DeWoody already funneling the obscene profit money from the St. Vincent's Hospital condo conversion to fund her reputation as a contemporary art collector ?