200 weather cold to decry loss of hospital
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Delia Winstead, center, of Braddock, and Jan McMannis, of Braddock Hills, chant slogans Saturday during a rally protesting the closing of UPMC Braddock hospital, which is set to close today. About 200 people participated in the rally.
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Standing on the balcony of Immanuel Lutheran Church on a bone-chilling Saturday afternoon in Braddock, William Zachary said a prayer that seemed to lift the spirits of a mass of protesters who gathered to decry the loss of a community hospital.
"Victory is given to those who endure to the end," said Mr. Zachary, 76, a longtime Braddock resident and deacon at Resurrection Baptist Church.
A member of Braddock Borough Council since 1982, Mr. Zachary called on the 200 or so protesters to hold hands and have faith that their community will persevere through what they all agreed was its darkest hour yet -- the loss of the UPMC Braddock hospital.
Opened in 1906 as Braddock General Hospital and then operated by the Sisters of Divine Providence since 1935, the former Braddock Medical Center became UPMC Braddock in 1996 when the giant hospital system acquired it.
The hospital closes today, three months after UPMC announced that it could not continue to operate the facility at a loss of between $4 million and $12 million annually.
UPMC blames the loss, in part, to a drop in patient admissions and general underuse by the Mon Valley communities it served.
Since then, borough residents and community activists have been engaged in a protracted public relations and legal battle to compel UPMC to keep the hospital open, culminating with Saturday's protest in front of the hospital building at Fifth Street and Braddock Avenue.
"I feel inspired by the energy of this crowd, and it compels me to have faith that something good will come out of this sad day," said Mr. Zachary, adding that a similar sense of faith-driven destiny filled him when he arrived in Braddock in 1952.
"I have seen this town go through some of the worst experiences and yet we survived. We will survive this, too," he said.
That, for the most part, was the sentiment of the rally, in equal parts a community revival and a call to arms.
"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 campaign Save Our Community Hospitals.
First Published January 31, 2010 12:23 am
