Showing posts with label Hurricane Sandy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hurricane Sandy. Show all posts

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Did Waves of Hospital Closings Impact Metro-North Derailment Passenger Emergency Trauma Treatment ?

From the Demand A Hospital list serve :


From:  Demand A Hospital <demandahospital@gmail.com>
Subject:  Corrected : Metro-North Derailment Injured Skip Nearer Level 1 Trauma Center
Date:  1 décembre 2013 20:19:14 UTC-05:00
To:  Demand A Hospital <demandahospital@gmail.com>

Corrected : 

Due to corrupt HTML code from the Newsday Web site, we are transmitting our prior e-mail in unformatted text.  Plus, we clarified the subject line.  

We apologize for the confusion.


- - - - - - - - - - - - 

Dear All :

Today was a sad day, following the tragic Metro-North train derailment in the Bronx.

For unexplained reasons, the Metro-North passengers injured today were dispersed amongst far-flung city hospitals, including Elmhurst Hospital Center, a Level I trauma center 13 miles away in Queens, even though St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital in Morningside Heights in Manhattan is less than 7 miles away.  

Following the wave of hospital closings under the Berger Commission, the Medicaid Redesign Team, and Superstorm Sandy, the capacity of New York City hospitals to handle mass trauma events remains in question.  

The following news report from Newsday indicates that some passengers have already been discharged after receiving emergency medical treatment, but many others remain hospitalized in critical condition.  Because time is of the essence when treating trauma patients, it's not yet known why some passengers were transported over longer distances, unnecessarily extending the time until some passengers received trauma care.

As we mourn the passengers, who died today, and as we wish those injured a speedy recovery, let's hope that city and state health officials recommit to the need to maintain capacity in our city and state hospital system for emergencies and accidents, especially mass events like this derailment.

Tonight, our thoughts are with the Metro-North passengers and their friends and families.  We owe it to each other to have a hospital system that maintains the necessary capacity and specialized medical staff to timely provide specialized Level I trauma care.



List of Level I Trauma Centers : http://www.health.ny.gov/professionals/ems/trauma2.htm

Newsday article link :  http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/ntsb-on-scene-to-probe-fatal-metro-north-derailment-1.6521318


NTSB on scene to probe fatal Metro-North derailment
Originally published: December 1, 2013 8:32 AM
Updated: December 1, 2013 7:06 PM

By JENNIFER BARRIOS, EMILY NGO AND ALFONSO A. CASTILLO jennifer.barrios@newsday.com,emily.ngo@newsday.com,alfonso.castillo@newsday.com

Investigators are trying to determine what caused a Metro-North passenger train to jump off the rails on Sunday morning, killing four people, while on an area of track that New York's governor called "dangerous."

The National Transportation Safety Board began its investigation Sunday at the scene of the derailment, about 100 feet north of the Spuyten Duyvil station on the Hudson Line.

More than 100 passengers were on the train, and FDNY reported at least 67 victims, including four killed, 11 critically injured and six with serious injuries. Five NYPD officers on the train commuting to work were among the injured, sources said.

A source in law enforcement said the train operator told first responders that he had applied the brakes but that they did not work. However, authorities have not corroborated that as of yet.

However, Russ Quimby, a rail safety consultant and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said train brakes are usually designed with a failsafe and if they malfunction, the train is designed to come to a stop.

The law enforcement source also said speed may have been a factor.

The seven-car train derailed at about 7:20 a.m., according to MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan.

Three men and one woman were killed, the MTA said.

Crews will use a crane to lift up the overturned cars Sunday night to search "for any further fatalities" and to avoid further fuel spills, National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener said during a briefing at the scene. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had said earlier he believed all passengers had been accounted for on Sunday.

Weener said a "multidisciplinary team" will meet Sunday night to form sub-teams to examine the point of derailment, the train signal system, mechanical equipment, data from event recorders, maintenance and personnel records and survival factors.

Weener said the team will document the condition of all the cars before turning the equipment back over to Metro-North. It also will interview the derailed train's personnel.

"Our mission is to understand not just what happened but why it happened, with the intent of preventing it from happening again," Weener said.

He said the NTSB already had downloaded information from the train's data recorder, which contains information about the train's operation at the time of the derailment.

Cuomo said track repairs will only begin after the NTSB finishes its investigation, which will take a week to 10 days.

"Tomorrow, I think it's fair to say, commuters should plan on a long commute," Cuomo said.

The derailed train, which was being pushed from the rear by a diesel locomotive, had been headed from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan when it tumbled from the tracks on a sharp curve near where the Hudson River meets the Harlem River.

"That's a dangerous area of the track, just by design," Cuomo told CNN on Sunday. "That's a difficult area of the track, but that doesn't explain the crash, either."

But he added later: "It can't just be the curve."

Trains are supposed to reduce their speed to 30 mph at that spot, according to the MTA. Before that point, trains can travel as fast as 70 mph.

Cuomo said people were ejected from the train because the front and rear doors opened.

As the trains slid along the ground on their sides, he said, the train cars "were picking up rocks and dirt, tree limbs, debris."

Late Sunday, emergency workers continued to work by floodlight among the cars, which still lay on their sides or listed dangerously along the river, as emergency boats floated in the water and emergency vehicles sat with lights flashing.

Bodies of the dead and the injured had been carried out on stretchers, and no passengers remained aboard late Sunday, but a ladder used to access the train was left leaning against the second car.

Dozens of uniformed police officers, firefighters and other first responders were still on the scene, some directing car traffic away from the area.

Maria Herbert was aboard the derailed train, working as an assistant trainman, said her husband, William Herbert, 53, of upstate Wallkill.

Herbert said his wife called him minutes after the event, injured and sounding like she couldn't breathe.

"Thank God she's alive," he said. "If that train went into the water, it would have been worse. I think God stopped the train."

Herbert, who said he worked in the maintenance department of the MTA for 25 years, said he and his wife had often discussed maintenance issues on the curve where the train derailed on Sunday.

"She had been fearful about that area," Herbert said. "That curve is very sharp and that rail wears away."

FDNY Chief of Department Edward Kilduff said that three of the four people who died were found by first responders outside the train, and one was inside. All of the fatalities were from cars that had flipped onto their sides. Most of those injured had suffered blunt trauma, Kilduff said.

Rescuers had to cut open cars and use air bags to lift them off one or two people who were trapped underneath, Kilduff said.

Kilduff said the terrain posed a challenge to rescuers, some of whom had to carry their equipment to the area. "The stability of the cars was also a serious challenge," he said.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said the train's engineer was at a hospital in stable condition. "He's banged up, but conscious and alert," Kelly said at a news conference.

Media reports indicated the engineer was a 20-year veteran of the MTA and had made a statement to investigators.

Officials estimated more than 100 people were on the train -- much fewer than would have been riding during a workday.

If the train had been fully occupied, said FDNY Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano, it would have been a tremendous disaster.

MTA board member Charles Moerdler described the scene as "dreadful, awful, chaotic."

"There were rail cars scattered all over the place, plus an engine, and hundreds of rescue workers -- fire, police and voluntary ambulance -- working feverishly together with canines," said Moerdler, who noted that the train came off the tracks along a "treacherous curve" and in an area where leaves are known to fall on tracks, making for dangerous, slippery rail conditions.

Quimby, a rail safety consultant who worked for 22 years as an NTSB crash investigator, said the curvature of the rail, and the speed at which the train traveled, would be among several factors examined in the NTSB probe.

He said curved rail can be susceptible to derailments because the centrifugal force of a train when it comes through a turn can, over time, gradually cause rails to separate from each other.

The group would likely be headed by a doctor of psychology who would examine any factors that could have taken the engineer's attention away from his job, including fatigue that could have caused him to "nod off," mobile devices, or drugs or alcohol. The engineer would give blood and urine samples for toxicological testing, he said.

Quimby said a type of event recorder that is standard on most commuter trains would likely provide answers to how fast it was moving when it derailed, and whether brakes were applied. He said he has never seen an instance of brake failure causing a commuter train to derail, because brake systems are generally designed with failsafes. If the brakes malfunction, a train automatically will come to a stop, he said.

Anthony Botallico, general chairman of the Association of Commuter Rail Employees -- the union representing Metro-North engineers and conductors -- said several train crew members were injured, as well as "extremely upset and traumatized."

"It's just a terrible tragedy, man," Botallico said. "My thoughts and prayers are going out to the family members and everybody who was killed. It's something that we're all feeling really hard right now."

The injured were taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center, Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center and Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, and Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, authorities said.

Spokesman Steve Clark at St. Barnabas said 10 people were admitted to the hospital to stay overnight. So far, two have been officially discharged from the hospital. One is a 14-year-old boy who was traveling with his father and the other is a man in his mid 20s. Clark said many of the people who are staying are not critically injured except for two: a 43-year-old man with a spinal cord injury and a 21-year-old woman with a leg fracture.

A woman named Maria Ojito stopped by the hospital and told reporters she was a family friend of the 43 year-old man who suffered spinal cord injuries. She said his name is Samuel Rivera, Sr. and he had a son, also named Samuel Rivera, who was the 14 year-old boy who was released earlier, both from Ossining, NY. She said the two were headed into the city but she is not sure for what and the father was undergoing surgery right now and had been for ten hours as of 6 p.m. She said the elder Rivera worked for MTA but not sure doing what but that he was not in duty.

She said the family is "devastated" by the news.

New York-Presbyterian received a total of 17 patients, 14 of which were received at the emergency department, according to a release. Of the 14, four were critical and 10 were noncritical, the release said.

Jacobi Medical Center received 13 patients, all in stable condition. Several have since been discharged, according to a statement released by the hospital.

Kelly was scheduled to visit the five injured officers in the hospital. At least one -- a female officer who suffered fractured ribs and other injuries -- was at St. Barnabas Hospital.

Officials said at news conferences they don't believe any of those passengers who were seriously injured will die.

Those looking to check on the status of family members were asked to call the city's 311 information line, while those outside of New York City could access the city's 311 system by calling 212-639-9675.

A family center staffed by Red Cross and officials from the MTA was set up at John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx.

Unlike air disasters, where authorities have complete passenger lists, there was no such list of who was on the Metro-North commuter train.

Politicians issued statements on the tragedy, including Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who said he was in contact with Kelly and was monitoring the situation.

A representative for Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not respond to a request for his whereabouts.

The White House issued a statement on Sunday, saying President Barack Obama had been briefed about the derailment and that his thoughts and prayers were with the friends and families of the victims.

Cuomo said Amtrak service between New York and Albany was resumed later Sunday.

Trains were moving through the derailment area at restricted speed, but service on the Hudson Line was suspended in both directions between Tarrytown and Grand Central on Sunday.

The Spuyten Duyvil station is off Edsall Avenue near Johnson Avenue in the Bronx, about 11 miles from Grand Central Terminal. The Henry Hudson Parkway passes over the area.

The derailment is the third major event to occur on Metro-North tracks in 2013 -- a year that has MTA officials have acknowledged has included a higher than normal number of safety-related incidents for its commuter railroads. In May, a Metro-North train derailed in Bridgeport, Conn, injuring 76 people. Less than two weeks later, a Metro-North train killed a track worker in West Haven, Conn.

And in July, a freight train derailed near the same location as Sunday's event.

With Maria Alvarez, Alfonso A. Castillo, Anthony M. DeStefano, Kevin Deutsch, Rita Deutsch, Tania Lopez, Ivan Pereira, David M. Schwartz, Nicholas Spangler, Andrei Berman and The Associated Press

-- 
Tell Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop closing our hospitals :  1 (518) 474-8390

You can also tweet your concerns to Gov. Cuomo at :  @NYGovCuomo 

Monday, October 7, 2013

Another Crane Emergency at One57 Highrise

BREAKING : Another crane emergency at the troubled luxury high-rise development known as One57, located on West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan near Central Park. Early reports indicate that there has been a malfunction of the crane at the construction site.

"Police have closed West 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, placing the area under a so-called Level One Mobilization," reported WPIX. This is the same construction site, which suffered from a partial crane collapse during Hurricane Sandy last year.

Monday, January 28, 2013

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>

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.  


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 : 


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.  



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.


Friday, January 11, 2013

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

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Protest Andrew Cuomo : Bring A Report Card To Show He Is Failing Expectations

From the Demand A Hospital listserv of St. Vincent's Hospital activists :

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All :

Action Alert

Governor Andrew Cuomo will be celebrating his birthday with a fundraiser at one of New York City's finest hotels. Join us outside the event.

Bring a cardboard or poster board sign and write across it : "To : Gov. Cuomo -- For Protecting Our Healthcare" and then give him a giant letter grade : F-

Date : Monday, January 7, 2012

Time : 6:00 pm

Place : Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue, Manhattan

Keep In Mind That Full-Service Hospitals Are Not Yet Fully Functioning.

The VA Hospital is not yet open, and other hospitals are only partially open. During this healthcare crisis comes the State Department of Health, trying to close down Westchester Square Medical Center in the Bronx. Westchester Square is scheduled to close on March 10. Its assets will be up for auction, but it is expected that Montefiore Medical Center will purchase the hospital. If Westchester Square is absorbed by a larger hospital group, the take over may leave many community members and hospital employees rightly worried about local healthcare and jobs. Read more : http://bronx.ny1.com/content/top_stories/174922/bronx-nurses--locals-dread-closing-of-westchester-square-medical-center

Remember how many hospitals in Queens were closed within a short time of having been merged into other hospital groups. The Department of Health uses mergers as a way to shuffle hospital debts between medical centers, which lead to financial losses and eventually to hospital closings.

All of the hospitals, which were damaged by Hurricane Sandy, are not yet fully functional. Emergency rooms have been experiencing record levels of overcrowding, especially at Beth Israel, and some full-service hospitals are now reduced to offering only "urgent care," like at Coney Island Hospital.

How can Gov. Cuomo, in his right mind, think that now is the right time to keep closing hospitals ?

Hurricane Sandy is still causing a healthcare crisis all these many months later, and Gov. Cuomo is not taking this healthcare crisis seriously. Not only are our hospitals not yet restored to being fully functional, but long term illnesses are beginning to emerge. Mold is an urgent healthcare concern for Hurricane Sandy survivors. "Homes are uninhabitable with black mold taking hold, heat and sanitation are still absent in many places. Yet the government response has been glaringly absent," was how the Occupy Sandy volunteer group described the situation last month.

Compounding this healthcare crisis is that the government is using the "healthcare crisis" as an excuse to burn hurricane debris, aggravating the lungs of hurricane survivors, who must also deal with mold. Read more : http://nyc.sierraclub.org/2012/11/dont-burn-sandy-debris/

In the face of all this, there's only one grade a person can reasonably give Gov. Cuomo : F-

Join us at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Monday night.

Date : Monday, January 7, 2012

Time : 6:00 pm

Place : Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue, Manhattan

We hope to see you at this demonstration. Read more : https://www.nycga.net/events/governor-cuomos-birthday-give-him-a-birthday-report-card/

Update : Letter To The Editor

Another person has published a letter in The New York Daily News about St. Vincent's Hospital :

Manhattan : To Voicer Joseph Human, who thinks New Yorkers can’t afford to let Mayor Bloomberg go: The mayor, who self-promoted himself on his fiscal and management skills, is leaving New York with an outstanding debt of more than $100 billion. Our surplus taxpayer dollars were used to award high-end commercial and real estate developers with grants and subsidies while St. Vincent’s Hospital and firehouses closed, massive cuts were made to essential services and our streets were intentionally jammed for bicycles and pedestrian plazas. Nikki Love

Read more : http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/jan-3-congress-betrayal-new-york-quality-members-congress-article-1.1231737?pgno=1

See you Monday night. Thank you for all that you keep doing.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Has Christine Quinn Lost Touch With Reality ?

''Let Them Eat Cake''

Last night, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) pulled the plug on a vote on the $60 billion Hurricane Sandy disaster relief bill after partisan bickering over the fiscal cliff, and Gerson Borrero complained that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has lost touch with reality.

House of Representatives delayed a vote on desperately needed Hurricane Sandy disaster aid (The New York Daily News) * ''They told us to basically drop dead !'' Angry New York residents and pols fuming over latest Sandy snub. * Hurricane Sandy Relief Center in NYC Looted on Christmas (NBC)

Some New York Democrats were ''outraged'' by the insensitivity and lack of dignity by Congress towards hurricane survivors. “I have been a member of this body for 24 years and I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry,” Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx, Westchester) told The New York Daily News. NY1 News editorial contributor Gerson Borrero was shocked to see that Speaker Quinn seemed to be oblivious about the lack of action on a comprehensive federal hurricane relief package.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Intentional Fire Set To Occupy Sandy Hub In Brooklyn

A two-alarm fire that started around 4:30 a.m. outside the Church of St. Luke And St. Matthew at 515 Clinton Avenue appears to have been deliberately set, NY1 reported. Occupy Sandy volunteers and members of the congregation were worried about hurricane relief supplies and Christmas gifts for New Yorkers affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Since Hurricane Sandy made landfall, thousands of volunteers, included members of the Occupy Sandy movement, have used the Church of St. Luke And St. Matthew as an important hub for hurricane relief efforts.

Here's a look at some of the compelling and heroic volunteer efforts of Occupy Sandy activists, which at times has been the only direct assistance available to hurricane survivors :

Rev. Christopher Ballard told The Wall Street Journal that two gas canisters, which had been being stored outside the church, might have been used to start the fire. The Rev. Ballard said he was told by police that it "appeared someone had taken gas and poured it on the entrance and all along the facade and lit it on fire."

"By Sunday afternoon, the fire at St. Luke And St. Matthew remained under investigation and a $1,000 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest," NY1 reported.

The suspicious fire at the church came just hours after it was revealed that the FBI was spying on the Occupy Wall Street movement. Redacted FBI information showed that there were reports, which the FBI kept confidential, that there were plans to use snipers to assassinate leaders of Occupy Houston. Because the Occupy movement continues to push for social, legal, and economic reforms, activists involved with Occupy obviously remain the target of harm.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Christine Quinn Campaign Crisis Management Mode

Serious Questions About Electability Of Perceived Front-Runner In Mayor’s Race

From The New York Times :

After months of maintaining a cool, above-the-fray approach to the 2013 mayoral race, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker and presumptive candidate-to-beat next year, is enduring the first bumps of what may be a pockmarked road to the Democratic primary.

This week, Ms. Quinn was criticized for a campaign finance bill that opponents — including her most important ally, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — said would tear a loophole in New York City’s election spending rules.

On television, there was Alec Baldwin, the temperamental actor, telling Piers Morgan’s national audience on CNN that Ms. Quinn had “blood on her hands” for supporting Mr. Bloomberg’s successful bid to circumvent term limits.

Read more : Hints at Steeper Road to Victory for Perceived Front-Runner in Mayor’s Race

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Hurricane Sandy Hospital Crisis Grows

From True News From Change NYC :

Closing of NYU and Bellevue Hospitals Because of Sandy Should Have Been A Wakeup Call That NYC Has A Hospital Crisis.

New Yorkers are Getting Sicker and Even Dying (esp. the poor) Because of A Hospital Crisis Made Worse by the Floods . . . Where is the Pols, Media and Activist Outrage?

Nobody Notices Hospital Crisis Or Sandy's Wake Up Call

With Some Hospitals Closed After Hurricane, E.R.’s at Others Overflow (NYT) Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn had 1,100 more emergency patients last month than in November 2011; the increase was mostly attributed to a hospital shut by the storm. * Hospital in Brooklyn Files for Bankruptcy Protection (NYT) Some New York medical centers are adding extra shifts and converting offices and lobbies into space for patients as emergency room visits surge. * Half of Brooklyn hospitals on life support | Crain's New York Business

The Angry New Yorker's Who Demanded Their Rights is Gone

Where are the Mayoral Candidates on the Hospital Crisis?

Why Is There No Movement To Save These Hospitals Like There Was in 1980 Against the Closing of Sydenham Hospital? 3 hospitals closed in Queens, St Vincent's murdered for a Co-op in Manhattan, 5 hospitals in trouble in Brooklyn. The activist and progressives are all over Facebook and twitter demanding pay for fasttfood workers because it is being pushed by unions looking for membership. It is very stranged that these same activists are silent on the health care needs of many of these workers who depend on the hospital system for all their health care needs. Could it be that the help unions provide the reason the activist are supporting their issues?

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Will Mayor Bloomberg Evict Occupy Sandy Hurricane Relief Volunteers From Staten Island Hub ?

Is Mayor Michael Bloomberg getting ready to evacuate the most successful volunteer hurricane relief response in New York City ? The New York Times City Room blog looks into the mayor's questionable moves against Occupy Sandy.

RELATED : Bloomberg’s stealth visit to the Rockaways, and join Occupy Sandy for a call to action on 12/15 http://bit.ly/Tth0sQ #occupysandy #ows

Mayor Bloomberg just can't help it : he does not believe that government should provide a safety net for the average person, much less to hurricane survivors. But we do have a choice : why do we accept less ? We don't have to accept less from our publicly elected officials.

Remember, Mayor Bloomberg initially said we didn't need help from FEMA ; consequently, thousands of Hurricane Sandy survivors went without any assistance, since it is Mayor Blooomberg's sick and twisted billionaire worldview that government is not supposed to help people in need. And in that vacuum of cruelty came forth Occupy Sandy volunteers, to not only fill the void, but to also lead by example : humanity means caring for one another.

Is Mayor Bloomberg really getting ready to evacuate the most successful, compassionate, and heroic volunteer hurricane relief response in New York City ?

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Hurricane Sandy Healthcare Rally at City Hall

New York City doctors and nurses are sounding a public health alarm on the stressed hospital network after Sandy.

Healthcare activists held a rally on the steps of New York's City Hall to demand that Mayor Michael Bloomberg do more to improve healthcare for survivors of Hurricane Sandy.

Sandy's floodwaters severely damaged NYU Medical Center, Bellevue Hospital, Coney Island Hospital, and Manhattan's VA Medical Center. Patients who would have sought care at those facilities are now turning to other hospitals that remain open. (WNBC)

Emergency room doctor Marisa Fernandez, who has been volunteering in the badly damaged Rockaways neighborhood, said, "We're having to recreate an entire healthcare infrastructure from scratch—everything ranging from assessment and triage of newly housebound individuals, to mobile clinics." (Zimbio)

Despite what some hospital administrators have claimed, Sandy turned out to be exactly what weather forecasters were predicting, so while the Manhattan VA and NY Downtown were evacuated before the storm hit, Bellevue, Coney Island and NYU Langone waited until after. We can't say for sure why--but certainly the loss of revenue may have been a factor in that decision. Even public hospitals depend on reimbursements from patient visits to stay financially viable. (Socialist Worker)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

City Hall Protest Against Bloomberg's Inadequate Healthcare Response To Hurricane Sandy

Meet at City Hall this Friday, 11/16, at 12:00 p.m. to tell Mayor Bloomberg that there are urgent unmet healthcare needs caused by Hurricane Sandy !

Date : Friday, November 16, 2012

Time : 12:00 Noon

Place : City Hall

2012-11-16 Mike Bloomberg City Hall - Hurricane Sandy Relief Rally Flyer

St. John's Episcopal Hospital At Capacity, Upper East Side Residents Complain About Hospital Crisis

After Peninsula Hospital closed, St. John's became the only full-service hospital in Far Rockaway. It is now operating at 100% capacity, meaning, it has no more room to take in patients. This condition is compounded by the fact that patients have nowhere to be discharged to, and by the fact that many of the employees have become homeless as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

Nearby nursing homes and adult homes have been evacuated and are not yet re-opened. Electricity continues to be a problem throughout the area and patients with special needs may have lost homes or cannot go back to homes without electricity or heat. Staff, many of them without homes or who have been evacuated, also need places to stay so they can continue to work. Homeless staff are given vouchers for hot meals.

St. John's has set up two funds for donations. To donate to St. John's Episcopal Hospital to continue its efforts to serve the community, please make a check out to St. John's Episcopal Hospital and mail it to St. John's Episcopal Hospital, 327 Beach 19th Street, Far Rockaway, NY 11691. To donate to the Hurricane Sandy Staff Relief Fund, please make the check out to St. John's Episcopal Hospital, and write in the memo "Hurricane Sandy Staff Relief Fund" and mail to the above-mentioned address. To pay by Paypal or Credit Card go to www.ehs.org.

Separately, WCBS 2 News did a piece about how the people in the Upper East Side are now beginning to complain about all the people from Lower Manhattan swarming their hospitals.

Maybe it is going to take complaints by UES residents to ring alarm bells about the uneven distribution of hospital beds in Lower Manhattan ?

Monday, November 12, 2012

NYY Langone Payroll Heard On The Street

NYU employees of the closed buildings will not be paid after November. Meanwhile, the Board Of Trustees are midway through a $3 billion capital raising program.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

NYC Hurricane Sandy - Hospital Evacuations and Berger Commission - FAIL

Why is it acceptable for us to allow hospitals go through such desperate attempts to equally and adequately fund the healthcare needs of patients ? Look at the consequences of the blackouts of New York City hospitals in Lower Manhattan.

The issue before us is whether the rebuilding of our hospitals will continue to favour wealthy institutions, which primarily serve the well-insured, or will we use this opportunity to examine and fix the unequal distribution of healthcare in New York created by the Berger Commission ?

As it is, we are on a path that will continue to force us to accept less and less. Look at how nursing homes were instructed by health officials not to evacuate, and then they are criticised by the Department of Health for unacceptable conditions compounded precisely because they were instructed not to evacuate. Is this acceptable ?

If we believe in the dignity and equality of all people, then our healthcare system must be reformed to provide patient care-centered healthcare, to equally meet the needs of all patients. Please support a truly universal, single-payer healthcare system.

Level One Trauma Centers in Lower Manhattan After Hurricane Sandy

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Coney Island Election Problems

2013 New York City Mayoral Candidate Bill Thompson posted this photograph on Facebook with this caption :

"I just witnessed chaos at 2950 West 33rd Street poll site in Coney Island. The site didn't open until after 9 a.m., and then the machines were not ready. This is the line to vote."

I posted a comment on the photograph, thanking Mr. Thompson for sharing this information. I also asked Mr. Thompson if he would help bring reforms to the Board of Elections. Later in the day, when I went to blog this photo, I noticed that I had been unfriended by Mr. Thompson. So, I guess he won't agree to help bring reforms to the Board of Elections ?

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Bellevue Morgue Under Water

In a post about the final two patients still remaining at Bellevue Hospital, The New York Times obtained details about some of the severe conditions inside the hospital's morgue :

The sources also said that after Hurricane Sandy hit, the Bellevue morgue was under water, so the bodies of patients who died of their illnesses after the storm had to be kept elsewhere. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner, confirmed that the Bellevue morgue had been flooded, but that with the assistance of the medical examiner, the bodies had been put on higher racks to keep them out of the water.

She did not know how many bodies there were. Ms. Borakove said the medical examiner’s morgue, which is separate, remained dry.

What is missing from these incremental reports about the deteriorating conditions at many hospitals in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is the failure of the mayor's emergency management plan that did not anticipate for infrastructure failures.

Not only that, but the New York State Department of Health has responsibility, for the irresponsible distribution of hospital beds in Manhattan. After nine New York City hospitals have closed, how do Gov. Andrew Cuomo ; Dr. Nirav Shah, the Secretary of the State Department of Health ; Stephen Berger, who continues to advocate for still yet more hospital closings ; and other statue health officials now view the issue of reducing the number of hospitals, when a mass civilian trauma event or natural disaster can destroy the infrastructure of the fewer remaining hospitals we have now ?

Here's an Associated Press video of the beginning of the evacuation of Bellevue Hospital :