Submitted by Judy Wessler, Nov 24, 2006 13:11

It is not surprising that the hospital association and union (1199) will not fight to save these hospitals. They see money at the end of the rainbow when hospitals are closed - money that is for bond holders and for the hospitals that remain standing and money for the union to do retraining. There is unfortunately no thought given to the impact on the communities where the hospitals will be closed. There is unfortunately also no thought given to even sharing some of the money to ensure that needed services will be left in place.

There are community organizations and unions that built a coalition effort - the Save Our Safety Net - Campaign (S0S-C) to ensure that medically underserved, low-income, immigrant and communities of color are not targeted or harmed by these proposed closings.

Judy Wessler

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