Workers try to save hospital

Hospital workers held a militant all-night vigil on Aug. 11 outside Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn. The hospital — vital to the well-being of the Black and West Indian community of Bedford-Stuyvesant that it serves — is slated to be closed for lack of funds. Members of hospital union 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and the New York State Nurses Association are demanding that the state come up with the money needed to keep it and other city hospitals open. At the vigil was the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a long-time civil rights leader and fighter for the community, who called the threatened closings a public health emergency. As they circled the hospital entrance, the workers chanted “Forward ever, backward never!” and “Save our hospital.” The workers plan to march against Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Aug. 29.