WestView Letter July 2013: Tired of St. Vincent’s Hospital

Tired of St. Vincent’s Hospital

Dear Editor,

I am really tired of reading about the demise of St. Vincent’s Hospital because they did this or that. The Hospital was well run. We had a very experienced CEO. The Hospital had never been in such great shape financially. The Mayor’s people came to the Hospital and told the CEO that he had to leave or they would remove him. This way, he would keep his severance pay, benefits and anything else due him. I overheard this while the Chief of Surgery was removing the CEO’s mole from his left arm. He was extremely upset, to say the least. All the lies you read about the hospital being in financial trouble is just that. Lies.

The new CEO, whom, we had never seen before came to the hospital one afternoon, gathered the physicians and other employees in the auditorium, and told us they were now in control of the hospital. He presented himself as the new CEO with a Board selected by his cohorts, and members of the Archdiocese of Brooklyn and Queens. He refused to tell us, who else was on the Board or that the Board had a problem. They had five (5) failing hospitals in the outer boroughs under their bailiwick. They had to get rid of them. St. Vincent’s was forced to assume control of them, and also, the debt they had accrued. The debt was in excess of $250 million dollars, and by the time it was all over, the debt was over a billion dollars. St. Vincent’s was taken to bankruptcy. All of the staff were in complete shock. The story passed around was: “the Hospital had poor management. It’s a shame.”

The process of taking St. Vincent’s to closure, took approximately eight years plus incredible lies told to the people living in the Village. They lucked out because we had many new families in the Village, who did not know the Hospital or its history.

In the wings, waiting to take over the hospital’s land, were the Mayor’s great friends, The Rudins, who wanted to build condos in place of a hospital. We have more condos than we will ever need. Enter stage left, Christine Quinn, who came to the site to keep the residents of the Village, at that time, from making too much trouble. She advised us that she was doing everything to help save St. Vincent’s Hospital while she was part of its demise. She wanted us to stay quiet and think she was on our side. She was the Mayor’s right hand person taking down St. Vincent’s without too much noise. Also, the Rudins go-to gal. One must get campaign finance money from somewhere.

At the same time, The New York Times, refused to print a word about what was happening to St. Vincent’s. They were friends of the Rudins and the Mayor. Dr. David Kauffman, from St. Vincent’s Hospital, made multiple calls to The New York Times editors to let people know what was happening. They refused to print a word about St. Vincent’s. I guess it was NOT FIT TO PRINT.

What a shame. St. Vincent’s Hospital was there for the Titanic Victims as well as the 9/11 victims, and many others in between. It’s too bad no one was there for St. Vincent’s except its employees.

Sheila Mahon, MS, NP