About 200 protesters marched in front of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's hospital in Braddock this afternoon, decrying the decisions of the giant hospital system and its planned closure of the Braddock facility on Sunday.

The rally, in equal parts a community revival and a call to arms to continue the fight -- capped what has been a protracted public relations battle to save the hospital since UPMC announced plans to close it in October.

"We lost the battle, but the war is not over. We are still alive!" shouted Tony Buba, a local filmmaker and one of the leaders of the grassroots Save Our Community Hospitals campaign. He yelled into a bull horn to rev up the people in the invigorated crowd, which ignored the bone-chilling temperature.

On Friday, the group lost a last-ditch effort to keep the hospital open when an Allegheny County judge refused to grant an injunction that would have done so.

Allegheny County Councilman Charles P. McCullough on Monday filed for an emergency, or temporary, injunction to stop UPMC from closing the hospital on grounds that the closure would violate its debt financing agreements with the county's hospital development authority and the Bank of New York Mellon.

Common Pleas Judge Eugene Strassburger dismissed the case, but Mr. McCullough has filed an appeal with the state Commonwealth Court.

Standing on the balcony of Immanuel Lutheran Church -- just beside the Braddock hospital building at Fifth Street and Braddock Avenue -- Mr. McCullough promised the crowd that he will carry forward his fight against UPMC.

"[UPMC] doesn't want to see you in court because they can't justify what they have done here," Mr. McCullough, R-Upper St. Clair, told the crowd. "But don't you worry about the closing of this hospital's doors tomorrow. Because when we win, they will have to re-open them."

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