**MEDIA ADVISORY FOR TOMORROW**: New Report Examines Hospital’s role in reinforcing Racial Healthcare Disparities

For Planning Purposes: March 11, 2021
Contact: Kristi Barnes | kristi.barnes@nysna.org | 646-853-4489

Montefiore Expansion, Investments Demonstrate Negative Impact on Healthcare Access and Community Health

Labor, Community, Elected Officials Demand Transparency and Accountability for Public Funds, Essential Healthcare Service Closures, and COVID-19 Data

Mount Vernon —The COVID-19 pandemic exposed long-standing racial disparities in healthcare and highlighted the urgent need to confront racism as a public health crisis. A new report from the New York State Nurses Association and the Save and Transform Mount Vernon Coalition explores the role that hospital systems and healthcare policy decision-makers play in reinforcing healthcare inequities. It looks closely at one system—Montefiore—and its record of hospital acquisition and expansion, its resourcing of its different facilities in its primary expansion area of Westchester County, and ultimately, the health outcomes in those communities.

The report, endorsed by labor, community, faith and elected leaders, includes several recommendations to increase equity and promote healthcare justice. Speakers will highlight key findings in this new report, speak from personal experience, and call for greater transparency, accountability and investment in the health of communities, particularly communities of color.

The New York State Attorney General’s recent report on nursing home deaths underscored the need for open and accurate data from New York’s hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, since the greatest number of COVID infections and deaths occurred in hospitals. The New York State Department of Health needs to provide the public with detailed, hospital-level COVID data. NYSNA’s Freedom of Information request for this data was just delayed for a second time. Advocates are calling for a thorough investigation of hospitals’—including Montefiore’s—pandemic response.

WHAT: Report release and speak out: Unequal Empire: How Montefiore’s Expansion Reinforces Racial Disparities in Healthcare

WHO: NYSNA nurses from Montefiore Mount Vernon, Montefiore New Rochelle, Montefiore Bronx, Save and Transform Mount Vernon Coalition, Reverend Dr. Stephen W. Pogue of Greater Centennial A.M.E. Zion Church, Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard, Mount Vernon Council Member Delia Farquharson, Assembly Member Chris Burdick, Westchester County Legislator David Tubiolo, Office of Congress Member Jamaal Bowman, New Rochelle Alliance for Justice (NRAJ), Commission on the Public’s Health System (CPHS), New York State Alliance for Retired Americans, and more.

WHEN: Friday, March 12 at 11:00 AM

WHERE: Steps of Mount Vernon City Hall, 1 Roosevelt Square North, Mount Vernon, NY 10550

VISUALS: Masking and social distancing will be strictly observed. Dozens of advocates will line the steps of City Hall, holding signs and infographics from the report.

**For an embargoed copy of the report, please contact Kristi Barnes at kristi.barnes@nysna.org**

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The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) represents more than 42,000 members in New York State. We are New York’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. More information at nysna.org. 

The Save and Transform Mount Vernon Coalition is community organizations and advocates, faith, labor, and elected leaders joining together to save and transform Mount Vernon Hospital. More information at www.savemvh.org.