Yesterday, St. Vincent's Hospital announced, "We have issued termination (WARN) notices to all employees of St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan today as required by state and federal law. The action came after the Board of Saint Vincent’s voted to close the hospital’s inpatient services and to seek a transfer of some or all of the outpatient services, after an effort to save the financially troubled 160-year old institution. Employees jobs will end based upon the needs of the hospital as it moves forward with an orderly and safe wind down of operations. The Board and management are extremely grateful for the dedication and professionalism of all St. Vincent employees, some of whom have been with us for decades, during this very difficult process."
Three thousand five hundred employees received the pink slip and though many are worrying, Intensive Care Unit Director Dr. Charles Carpati told NY1, "We'll be okay, it's the patients that matter." Some senior doctors at St. Vincent's think NY State Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines killed a possible partnership with Mt. Sinai that could have saved the hospital. The NY Times reports, "They argued that Dr. Daines was trying to help a rival hospital, St. Lukes-Roosevelt, where he had been an executive, by reducing competition for patients." However, Daines' spokeswoman said the doctors couldn't offer any proof and while "she understood the doctors’ distress...such speculation was 'absolutely untrue.'"
Since ambulances are no longer taking patients to St. Vincent's, other hospitals have been taking them. A Beth Israel emergency room doctor told the Times, that usually there are four or five on Sunday morning, but this past Sunday, there were 25: "Half of them were drunks from the St. Vincent’s late-night bar scene. They get into fights, they fall down."
