Save Our Community Hospitals holds rally in Braddock Pennsylvania

November 19, 2:21 PMPittsburgh History ExaminerDev Meyers

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This print was part of the Obscurae Photography Exhibition and Art Lottery Fundraiser on December 6, 2008, benefitting Braddock Redux art and community projects.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/obscuraegallery/ - Flickr: cjrodkey

PITTSBURGH, November 19-The newly formed organization Save Our Community Hospitals (SOCH) held a rally today in Braddock, Pennsylvania in support of keeping the Braddock Hospital open. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) announced in October 2009 that it planned to close the hospital on January 31, 2010. Speakers at the rally called on UPMC to reverse its decision and live up to its claim of being concerned about the region’s communities.

“The entire valley has yet to fully recover from the decline of the steel industry,” said Jesse Brown, president of Braddock Borough Council. “We cannot let UPMC devastate this community. We’re just starting and we’ll fight to the end.”

“We in Braddock will not give up the fight to save the hospital in this economically distressed community,” said Bill Zachary, Braddock Borough councilman.”

UPMC is a global health corporation with facilities in Italy, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Qatar, and Cyprus. The 2,700 residents of the borough have no easy access to another health facility. Not only is UPMC Braddock the largest employer in the borough, with 652 employees, it also has Braddock's only restaurant -- the hospital cafeteria -- and the town's only ATM.

"If it wasn't for Braddock Hospital being close enough to stabilize my brother in time, he would have died," said Pat Morgan, a Braddock resident.

“UPMC claims to be concerned about our communities. It has operating revenues

of $2 billion and gets tens of millions of dollars in public funding. We want public hearings to determine what the truth is about operations at Braddock Hospital,” said Tony Buba, Braddock filmmaker. “UPMC must explain why it can’t either run Braddock without a loss, or make up that loss from elsewhere in its system.”

Pennsylvania Health Department reports on hospital utilization show that UPMC Braddock's occupancy rate in 2007-08 was 72.4 percent, higher than six other Allegheny County hospitals, including UPMC Mercy, West Penn, Heritage Valley in Sewickley and Ohio Valley. Yet, UPMC plans to close Braddock Hospital while building a similar-sized hospital in Monroeville, less than one mile from the Forbes Regional Hospital.

"This is an example of a critical issue that has been missing from the current debate on health care: disparity of treatment and lack of access to health care for minority and poor communities,” said Fred Redmond, International Vice President for Human Affairs for the United Steel Workers. “UPMC is abandoning an area with a large number of minority and senior citizens; hundreds of them are retired steelworkers. We expect UPMC to do better, to reverse this decision and keep UPMC/Braddock Hospital open."

Ed Cloonan, former state store workers’ union president and board member of the Western Coalition for Single-Payer Healthcare expressed outrage at the UPMC decision: “UPMC building a new hospital near another hospital in an affluent neighborhood and abandoning Braddock is an example of the cancer of our profit-driven healthcare system, all the while pretending to be a nonprofit charity.”

Denise Edwards, a member of the Wilkinsburg Council said: “I applaud the leadership of Braddock Borough Council who are leading the fight for not only Braddock residents, but all who depend upon the hospital for their health care needs and their jobs, to 'storm heaven' and keep Braddock hospital open.”