Listen: The Human Right to Healthcare: Northeastern Hospital is Ground Zero

People across the country are in the midst of a debate about the best path to fixing our broken health care system and getting quality healthcare to the un/underinsured. While attention is focused at the state and federal levels, the city of Philadelphia is about to lose another vital institution that serves the healthcare needs of poor and working class Philadelphians--Northeastern Hospital. This city-wide struggle to save Northeasterngoes hand-in-hand with the national fight. Keeping Northeastern Hospital open and fixing our country' healthcare system are two sides of the same coin. Listen to a report from Labor Justice Radio.

Let's review the facts around Northeastern Hospital, and what it stands for in the larger city, state and national struggles for healthcare for all. Northeastern has become a central healthcare institution for North and Northeast Philadelphia' predominately working class and low-income communities. Last year Northeastern saw 50,000 patients in it' emergency room, and delivered 1,800 babies. Northeastern is part of the Temple University Hospital System (TUHS) which in the last five years received $120 million in enhanced government supportto treat poor people, and has profited an average of $20 million per year in recent years, with almost $400,000 million in cash on hand.Given it' role in the community, as the last maternity ward and serving poor communities, there is general consensus amongst doctors, nurses, social workers and community members that the closure of Northeastern will have dire, life and death consequences on the health and welfare of communities in Northeast Philadelphia. Temple' decision to close Northeastern is immoral and dangerous.

In precisely the moment when we need to look out for the needs of all Philadelphians, Temple is using the larger economic crisis as a pretext to shirk its social responsibilities to Philadelphia in a dehumanized drive for increased profits. The fight over Northeastern is bigger then the hospital. It is about how we make decisions and for whom. What seems on first glance like a fight for Northeastern is a fight for our economic human rights.

The reality of the national campaign to fix healthcare is that it means little if we pass a federal law if there are no institutions for people to access that care. It is critical that right now, we recognize the fight for healthcare as a human right through the lens of Northeastern and demand that Temple not close this precious institution, especially as we see the city and state lose hospital after hospital, shut down by institutions not concerned with the health of the community but rather in ever increasing profit. We’ll only win the fight for Northeastern if we link it to the broader fight for the human right to healthcare. And in the same breath, we’ll only win the national fight for the human right to healthcare if we join it with local projects of survival like Northeastern hospital.

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