Standing in ponchos and under a canopy of umbrellas, a few hundred people gathered in the rain in front of UPMC Braddock yesterday to decry UPMC's decision to shutter the hospital there, hoping their messages -- conveyed over a crackly portable speaker -- would sway the medical giant to change its mind about closing the facility.

From a makeshift stage on a truck bed, elected officials, United Steelworkers activists and residents lambasted UPMC for choosing profits over people while a handful of doctors and nurses looked on from hospital windows.

"[UPMC] does not care about the poor and predominantly African-American members of this community," said Braddock Councilwoman Tina Doose. She questioned UPMC's claim that the hospital was underutilized, pointing out that state reports indicated it was about average. "Is there a doctor in the crowd? The CEO of UPMC [Jeffrey A. Romoff] needs a heart transplant."

State Rep. Paul Costa, D-Wilkins, also scrutinized UPMC's motives behind closing the hospital, pointing out that while company officials claimed UPMC Braddock was losing money, the hospital system is getting ready to build a new $250 million facility in Monroeville.

"They're abandoning the Braddock area and they're building a hospital in the richer suburbs and that's wrong," he said.

United Steelworkers members, shuttled in from Aliquippa and Clairton, were among the protesters and they compared the struggle to keep the hospital open to the one they faced when the mills closed more than two decades ago. Around 20 employees from the Edgar Thomson Works, just blocks away from the hospital, also joined the crowd.

"This is our hospital," said Denise Edwards, a Wilkinsburg councilwoman and former steelworker.

Fred Redmond, USW Vice President for Human Affairs, spoke of how the hospital's closure perfectly illustrated what he said was wrong with the American health care system: that wealthy and middle class people were given better access to health care at the expense of those at the bottom of the socioeconomic chain.

The United States has "a health care system that is literally broke, a system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor," he said. "[The closure] reflects the disparities of the broken system."

Speakers also vowed to continue to fight the closure -- currently slated for the end of January -- until the bitter end and encouraged audience members to do the same. Another rally is in the works.

"I'm anticipating this is going to be a long struggle," said County Councilman Charles Martoni, D-Swissvale. "Let's give 'em hell."

Council President Jesse Brown also told the crowd that he planned to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the hospital's closure to see if it constituted a civil rights violation.

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