Rest in Peace, St. Vincent's

A poster on the St. Vincent's boarded-up emergency room entrance reads, "A boundless thank you for your service to the mission of St. Vincent's Hospital and the tradition of the Sisters of Charity."

At 8 a.m. on April 30, St. Vincent’s Hospital officially closed its doors, leaving over 3,500 employees without jobs. The closure was marked when the West Village emergency room stopped admitting patients and boarded the entrance. Attached to the unpainted plywood are several “closed” signs with the hospital’s logo and a poster resembling a gravestone, reading, “St. Vincent’s Hospital 1849 – 2010.”

The board of St. Vincent’s voted to close the hospital on April 6 after a long struggle with management and economic issues. The hospital is over $1 billion in debt; it is not clear exactly how much or why because that is the highest amount a debtor may claim, according to the New York Times.

St. Vincent’s took the first steps towards closing back in December 2009 when about 180 employees were laid off. After more layoffs and protests in 2010, the process recently sped up. On April 11, all ambulances stopped running. By mid-month, all 3,500 employees received termination notices, according to the New York Post, and on April 15 at 4:58 a.m., Abigail Yael Jancu was the last baby born at the hospital.

Many employees stuck around to say goodbye to the hospital and treat its last patients, including 43 emergency room walk-ins on the night of April 29. Over 1,500 employees attended a morning mass in the hospital’s chapel on April 30.

“It’s like a funeral,” said Vivieth Buckner, a community-medicine medical assistant at St. Vincent’s for 17 years, to the New York Post on May 1.

Since St. Vincent’s stopped running ambulances, the Daily News has reported Beth Israel Medical Center on East 16th Street saw a 25 percent increase in walk-in patients.

West Village residents may not have to worry too much about the trek to Beth Israel, however. Lenox Hill Hospital, located on East 77th Street, is receiving $9.4 million in state money to open a temporary emergency facility on St. Vincent's property, the New York Times reported on April 26, but there is no definite date. The urgent care facility will treat minor emergencies; those with "more elaborate care" will be sent to Lenox Hill or other hospitals, said Governor David Paterson to the Times.

Until then, the fire department plans to have several ambulances in the neighborhood to make bringing emergencies to other hospitals easier. Two will be outside St. Vincent’s.

With over 400 inpatient beds and room for 700 patients, St. Vincent’s was there for the Village during its 161 years. It was there for the cholera epidemic in 1849, the Titanic’s sinking in 1912, September 11, and most recently, when US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River in 2009. It’s served celebrities, artists, poets, and ordinary people alike.

"It's not just a shame that we're losing a hospital," said a West Village resident standing outside the boarded-up entrance on a Sunday morning who did not wish to be named, "but that we're losing a great hospital."