Pittsburgh Community opposes hospital closing [Archive]

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Communist

30th January 2010, 16:31

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PITTSBURGH
Community opposes hospital closing (http://www.workers.org/2010/us/pittsburgh_0204/)

By Marc Heston
Pittsburgh
Published Jan 30, 2010 6:51 AM

The multi-billion-dollar University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is quickly moving to close the Braddock hospital on Jan. 31. The labor-community struggle to keep the hospital open is continuing.

As of Jan. 15, the hospital has stopped admitting new patients. UPMC officials say they will move whatever patients remain to other facilities — including to the new $250 million facility being built in Monroeville, Penn., roughly 10 miles away from Braddock — by the end of the month. The only competitor to UPMC in the area is in Monroeville.

The closing of UPMC Braddock, announced in October, has been met with objections from members of the mostly impoverished Braddock community and has received attention from local media as well as many activists. Residents are worried and concerned, as many do not have transportation and would have to rely on public transportation to help them get to appointments at the new facilities.

UPMC officials have claimed lower occupancy rates as a reason for closing the Braddock hospital. But the 2007-2008 rate of 72.4 percent was higher than six other area hospitals, and UPMC did not figure in behavioral health beds used for alcohol and drug detoxification programs. UPMC claims of dwindling occupancy and financial hardships with the Braddock location simply do not gibe with the facts.

UPMC President and CEO Jeffrey Romoff received over $4 million in 2008 compensation alone, a figure that hasn’t escaped the attention of activists.

Past rallies have been well-attended and enthusiastic. A Nov. 19 rally in pouring rain brought hundreds of residents, Steelworker union retirees and students to protest the injustice of UPMC’s decision. About 130 protested on Jan. 15, the last day of new patient admittance, many holding signs reading, “Shame on UPMC.”

On Martin Luther King Day a march highlighted reports that federal authorities may investigate whether the UPMC is violating civil rights laws by closing its hospital. This is brought on by a lawsuit by Charles McCullough of the Allegheny County Council and an assertion by Braddock City Councilmember Jesse Brown, who protests the move of the facility from the predominantly African-American neighborhood to a mostly white area.

Brown is seeking an injunction that would keep the hospital open while an investigation is conducted. Concerns about what would be done with the vacant structure are also on the minds of many in the community.

Upcoming events include weekly planning meetings and a scheduled rally outside UPMC Braddock hospital at noon on Jan. 30.

For up-to-date information visit www.savebraddock.com (http://www.savebraddock.com).

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DecDoom

31st January 2010, 04:12

Odd, I live in that general area and haven't heard much about it on the local news. You think they'd at least mention it.

Either way, here's hoping it stays open.

Communist

2nd February 2010, 05:06

Despite everything, a last-minute injunction to halt UPMC Braddock's closing was denied. The hospital locked it's doors on January 31st, a dark day for the community.
:(

Uppercut

2nd February 2010, 13:04

DecDoom

2nd February 2010, 15:40

This is disgusting. I live in Washington township (about 20 min. away from Pittsburgh) and it's been left out of the news for the most part. Why the hell would anyone want to close a hospital??

Oh well, that's America for you...

Exactly how I feel. I think I caught the story on WPXI once, and the closing announcement on KDKA once.

Communist

5th February 2010, 21:46

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Braddock officials oppose UPMC site plan (http://www.savebraddock.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&view=lyftenbloggie&category=0&Itemid=7)

Thursday, February 04, 2010
By Karamagi Rujumba, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

One day after county officials announced a plan to redevelop the site of the former UPMC Braddock hospital building, borough council members said they are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea.

Describing the proposal presented on Tuesday by Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato as "outrageous and an insult" to Braddock residents, Council President Jesse Brown, Councilwoman Tina Doose and borough solicitor Lawrence Shields III said the plan -- as it stands -- is unacceptable.

"In no uncertain terms, Braddock Council unanimously rejects the plan," said Mr. Shields. Speaking at news conference on Wednesday along with several council members, he added that any plan that calls for demolishing the former hospital should be "taken off the table."

Instead, the council members said they would like the county to reopen talks with them and other community groups to start the process of a national search for a health care provider who would be willing to take over the building and run it as a hospital.

The announcement would appear to quash the proposal Mr. Onorato outlined on Tuesday. Mr. Onorato said he would only push the proposal forward if Braddock officials bought into the plan.

His spokesman, Kevin Evanto, said that in light of Braddock Council's position, "we cannot move forward with this plan. They have to be part of the plan and if they choose not to, then they are welcome to propose their own plan."

Under the county's proposal, UPMC would pay the cost to demolish hospital building and the site would be redeveloped as complex with housing for senior citizens, space for doctors' offices and classrooms for job training offered through the Community College of Allegheny County.

As part of the redevelopment proposal, Allegheny County would receive $3 million from UPMC, which would help leverage another $3 million from the state to be applied toward redevelopment.

The borough also would receive $90,000 a year for five years as payment in lieu of wage taxes that had been paid by UPMC employees who lived in the borough.

But Braddock Council members said Wednesday they would not accept the $450,000 in payments from UPMC.

"If the payments are part of this plan, yes. We will reject them because of their ties" to the proposed demolition of the former hospital, said Mr. Shields.

Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, who has been at odds with council on a range of municipality issues for years, said council's position on this redevelopment plan was "regrettable."

"It's a sad day for the residents of Braddock because there is no logical reason to reject this proposal," Mr. Fetterman said. "We would all like to see that building remain as a hospital, but there are no health care providers out there who want to operate it as a hospital."

Braddock residents and officials, Mr. Evanto added, had ample opportunity to review the county's redevelopment plans in a series of public meetings of a committee formed by Mr. Onorato that reviewed what could be done with the property.

Mr. Fetterman, Mr. Brown, Ms. Doose and other residents were on that committee.

But longtime Braddock resident Pat Morgan, who as a member of the grass-roots campaign Save Our Community Hospitals sat on the committee, said that Mr. Onorato and county officials never specified all the details of the redevelopment plan.

"When [Mr. Onorato] talked about the plan, we thought some of those ideas were good ideas, but we didn't think it was final. We were under the impression that [Mr. Onorato] would be coming back to hold a bigger community meeting to explain the idea some more, but he never came back," said Ms. Morgan.

The borough council on Tuesday voted to override Mr. Fetterman's veto of a bill to raise taxes to make up for the revenue the borough would lose in wage taxes with the closure of the hospital.

The council had voted to raise property taxes by 1 mill to 11.7 mills last year, but Mr. Fetterman vetoed the increase, saying he wanted to see if the borough could find other ways to fill holes in its budget.

Council voted 5-0 to override the mayor's veto. Council members said they would rather live with a tax hike than go along with the plan to tear down the hospital building.

"If we let our access to health care go away because of this plan, then once again, Braddock will lose," said Ms. Doose.

But Mr. Fetterman countered that it is Braddock residents who will lose, mostly because of the borough council's decisions, especially their vote to raise taxes even as they turn down payments from UPMC.

"I know a good deal for Braddock when I see it. And now, because of council, the very residents who will suffer without a hospital will pay higher taxes," said Mr. Fetterman.

UPMC announced it was closing the hospital last year and shut the doors on Sunday because officials said the hospital did not draw enough patients from the community to stay open.

But Mr. Brown said that borough council members have not given up on the idea of pursuing a national health care provider to operate a hospital where UPMC is pulling out. And going forward, he added, the county ought to let the borough determine its destiny.

"Our citizens need to be totally informed and involved in the process. We're tired of outsiders coming to tell us what is best for our community," said Mr. Brown.

The county, he and Mr. Shields added, has not fully pursued all the hospital systems -- as many as 15 of them from around the country -- that are interested in running the facility.

But Mr. Evanto said that Jackson Clark Partners -- the Pittsburgh consulting group that the county hired to analyze its options in Braddock -- contacted all 15 hospital systems and a few others, and none of them were interested in operating a hospital in Braddock.

The county, Mr. Evanto continued, received three serious inquiries from health care companies and organizations that might have been interested in using the building, but none of them was interested in operating a hospital or emergency medical services or even using the whole building.

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Communist

14th February 2010, 00:58

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(http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_665905.html)Betrayal in Braddock (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_665905.html)
By Joseph Sabino Mistick
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UPMC has done it.

It has closed Braddock Hospital, even though the health care giant enjoys tax-exempt status in exchange for serving communities just like Braddock.

And in the end, nothing -- not protests or lawsuits or politicians -- could challenge the moral bankruptcy that allowed UPMC to deliver a mortal blow to one of the poorest communities in the region.

By moving out of Braddock and away from its struggling people, UPMC now will serve far fewer indigent patients and, because of that, it will see its profit grow.

For-profit hospitals, with a bottom-line duty to their shareholders instead of a duty to the community, are built in more affluent areas for this same reason.

And by moving to better-off communities, UPMC will realize a greater benefit from its tax-exempt real estate status, since the property in those communities is worth more. This means that the average taxpayer -- even those on fixed incomes -- must pay more taxes to cover what UPMC does not pay.

Until 1969, the community benefit that justified tax-exempt status was measured by the IRS in large part by how many poor people were treated free of charge by a nonprofit hospital. But a change gave hospitals credit for those informational programs that they conduct in the general community, many of which are really marketing devices designed to increase profits.

And when a court decision stripped a Pennsylvania hospital of its real estate tax exemption in the 1990s because its profit-generating activities were outside its nonprofit mission, the state Legislature promptly changed the law and restored that exemption -- increasing the tax burden on average citizens once again.

UPMC has come to mean "U People Must Comply."

The decision to close Braddock Hospital was made in secret meetings without the participation of anyone in the community. It was a sneak attack on a crippled community, beneath any community institution that purports to care about people in dire straits, and the public was given no option but compliance.

UPMC has come to mean "U Politicians Must Consent."

After the announcement to close Braddock Hospital, politicians who initially rushed to UPMC to object were rebuffed like impetuous children -- and they slunk away. On the heels of UPMC's imperious behavior, and against the interests of the forsaken citizens, Allegheny County Council fell right in line and approved a $1.2 billion county-backed bond issue for the corporate giant.

UPMC has come to mean "U Patients Must Change."

Old and poor patients, now without an accessible hospital, are being offered free bus rides to a medical campus in Forest Hills, where UPMC has found a prettier place to generate its profits. Neither this balm nor a proposed community college facility can soothe the damage to the community and the people who live there.

Most folks are familiar with that old chestnut of betrayal in which a loyal wife works hard and sacrifices much to put her husband through medical school, only to have him leave her for a younger woman once her beauty has faded and he is successful.

It has been that way with the people of Braddock and their hospital. They have supported their hospital in every possible way, remaining loyal and faithful, through good times and bad, for better or worse. Braddock never stopped loving its hospital.

UPMC just stopped loving Braddock back.

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Communist

23rd February 2010, 04:44

.
Braddock group files another suit over closing of hospital (http://www.savebraddock.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&category=activist%20media&Itemid=7)
by Karamagi Rujumba

A group of Braddock residents and activists from neighboring areas, and the group Save Our Community Hospitals, this afternoon filed another suit against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, challenging the hospital system's tax-exempt status and demanding that it re-open the Braddock hospital it closed last month.

"As tax-exempt charities, defendants' primary purpose is to provide hospital care (and in particular with respect to UPMC Braddock) for citizens of Braddock and neighboring communities. Their closing of Braddock hospital violates defendants' charitable purpose," stated the 80-page suit filed in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas.

The plaintiffs, who are asking a judge to order the re-opening of the hospital, include Annette Baldwin, Linda J. White, Michelene C. Thomas, Delia Ann Lennon Winstead, Patricia A. Morgan, Virginia C. Eskridge, Michael Stout, and the group Save Our Community Hospitals, non-profit formed last year to fight the hospital's closure.

Representing the group is Allegheny County Councilman Charles P. McCullough, who, in a last-ditch effort tried to stop the hospital's closure last month through an emergency or temporary injunction, which was thrown out by Common Pleas Judge Gene Strassburger.

Unlike his last attempt, when he sought to stop the hospital's closure in his capacity as a county councilman, Mr. McCullough, R-Upper St. Clair, said he is simply the attorney of record this time.

"I'm not claiming standing here," Mr. McCullough said.

This suit, he added, is premised on the fact that UPMC, as a "quasi-public entity" because of its tax-exempt status, debt financing through county and state secured bonds, cannot arbitrarily close its hospital in a community like Braddock, where it primarily serves poor people who are predominantly Black.

"[UPMC] cannot summarily destroy a hospital, which it holds in trust for the people," said Mr. McCullough, who is also asking for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to use its King's Bench power to take immediate jurisdiction over the case.

A common law phrase, King's Bench refers to a legal practice that dictates that the highest court in the land has the power to seize a case from a lower court and take it over, if it so chooses.

Meanwhile, Mr. McCullough has also appealed to Superior Court, Judge Strassburger's denial of an emergency injunction to stop the hospital's closure, in which he said UPMC's decision might have been unpopular, but not illegal.

(http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10048/1036556-100.stm#ixzz0fpTPvCqD)

Axle

23rd February 2010, 05:47

Any idea how many workers are at that hospital?

Braddock already has a smashed economy on account of the steel mill closures, and I'm guessing a healthy portion of laid-off workers and workers new to the job market have turned to healthcare (it always seems to go that way in post-industrial cities like Braddock). The fact that UPMC is tearing down one of the few industrial supports of a city that's been on the ropes since the 1970's is both disgusting and incredibly irresponsible.

I hope UPMC gets fucking slammed in court for this. And if it doesn't, the community needs to march in and take the hospital for themselves.

Communist

23rd February 2010, 05:53

There were 652 employees in the hospital. It was the largest employer in the area.
Disgusting indeed - there's so many families in that borough that depended on it.
:(

Axle

23rd February 2010, 06:03

There were 652 employees in the hospital. It was the largest employer in the area.
Disgusting indeed - there's so many families in that borough that depended on it.
:(

That's equal to almost a quarter of Braddock's population...for all intents and purposes this is going to send them right back to the Stone Age.

Fuck, nevermind that we're talking about a closed hospital in a place that's even poorer than Detroit...

Communist

23rd February 2010, 06:14

I don't have the exact figures of how many employees were residents of the borough, and I've heard several numbers, but well over half. It's crippling. UPMC has been saying they're working on job relocation and produced this (http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:yw3BJ6t52qIJ:economic.alleghenycounty.us/authorities/BraddockHospReport.pdf+%22braddock+residents%22+em ployed+upmc&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiQGkyrqj0bsVFFBNmexxCEbw7fogxQYO345Qr_ 3XHEsiv5V2UKHm0N9tAikNrR0QdfC9Bc1HxiVMcvv7PE5R6wu4 RothA_HDKg2y3vi0MjLd0gaKzenL846xsA7uU36WzeL6sB&sig=AHIEtbSQk0Ix6_L7s2Ylpf1tBMSPzrHa3A), but so far I haven't found out anything more about that.

Axle

23rd February 2010, 06:37

Communist

23rd February 2010, 06:45

Economically, absolutely the town is in tatters. There's talk of doing this and that with the building, but it had better be something that will employ a very solid number of Braddock residents.
There's other things too.
I didn't mention this in the article, but the hospital cafeteria was the only restaurant in Braddock. And like every neighborhood, a handful of older residents would meet every morning for coffee and to break bread. Even little things like that can mean so much to people.