Washington, D.C.--Mount Vernon Hospital provides essential health care for the people of Mount Vernon, the Pelhams, East Yonkers, New Rochelle, and the north Bronx. We cannot afford for it to close. It is past time for everyone connected with the hospital to come together and take the necessary steps to keep it open.

It does not help Mount Vernon if we pass a health care bill in Washington and the President signs it only to have the hospital close. All of us, elected and appointed officials at every level of government, all the citizens of Mount Vernon, those from the hospital, its medical staff and its unions, and the Sound Shore Medical Center must come together and do what it takes to keep our hospital open.

This hospital, a full service facility, served over 26,000 patients through the Family Health and Wellness program, 22,000 in the emergency room, and provided inpatient care to thousands more last year.

We cannot allow our city and the surrounding area to be cut off from its primary health care provider. We must work together to keep Mount Vernon Hospital open to keep the people of Mount Vernon and the surrounding area healthy.

Mount Vernon has served the community since 1891, more than a century of health care service to generations of community residents. The hospital is also a significant employer for the area. In economic times such as we are in, it would be a double tragedy to lose the medical care the hospital provides while putting out on the street the people who help to provide that care.

Further, as is always the case in these situations, it will be the poor and middle class bearing the brunt of any closing. The well-to-do will always find care but cutting off medical care to those just getting by pushes them even closer to the edge. Health care reform does these people little good if there is no health care available for them.