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Nurses, neighbors protest closure of Mount Vernon hospital
Nurses and members of the community came out Friday evening to protest the anticipated closure of Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital.
MOUNT VERNON - Nurses and neighbors gathered infront of Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital on Friday to protest its anticipated closure.
Officials at Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital say they are planning to close the facility by the end of the year and open a new emergency care facility roughly ten minutes away.
In a statement, Montefiore said: “Having already invested $100M, we have committed an additional $41M to build a new state-of-the-art health care center and off-campus emergency department on Sandford Boulevard.”
Any patients who come to the new emergency room who need hospitalization will be transferred elsewhere, an idea that some former patients said they found frightening.
“Time matters,” said Emerson Brown, a former patient. “We don’t need extended time and risk around health. This is a hospital that’s in the center of the city and it needs to be maintained here.”
Montefiore said that the hospital will operate until the new location opens. Protesters at Friday’s event said they have started a petition that they plant to bring to Governor Andrew Cuomo.