Last night we were supposed to be going to St Vincents for a free tour of the maternity ward. But the woman running it called in the afternoon to say it’s been cancelled because the hospital is closing – the hospital board announced the closure on Tuesday and it’s happening pretty much right away. So that’s that. 160 years of treating the population of lower Manhattan, and now the buildings will probably be turned into just more expensive apartment buildings. I came home via the hospital to see what was going on and passed a nurses protest – 800 will probably lose their jobs. Their placards summed up the situation well. “Condos don’t save lives," said one.
Round the corner I spotted a plaque on the wall about the poet Edna St Vincent Millay, where I learned that she was named after the hospital:
So our little Dobritican (the word C came up with for Dominican-British-American) will have to come into the world elsewhere. At the moment it’s looking like New York Downtown Hospital in the financial district. The description of its maternity ward sounds a little condo-like itself: “New mothers deliver in the Hospital's beautifully renovated, state-of-the-art Maternity Center, which is equipped with attractive, family-oriented suites for labor and delivery.”
But I won’t pass judgment too quickly. I’m sure all will be well and my obstetrician, who won’t change, will give us all the control we need over how the baby’s born.
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