Supporters file suit to stop NYC hospital closing

Supporters of St. Vincent’s Hospital filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming the facility’s closing violates state health laws, a last-ditch legal effort to keep it from shutting down.   

The suit, filed in state Supreme Court, claims the closing of the hospital violates laws because the Health Department hasn’t yet fully approved the closure plan.

Civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland, speaking for patients, hospital employees and neighborhood residents, said they wanted to “ensure that a hospital, a necessary hospital, is allowed to continue to operate.”

But health officials say the hospital had approval for everything that’s been done so far. St. Vincent’s did not comment on the suit.

The effort came a day after 1,000 St. Vincent’s employees were officially laid off.

Earlier this month, the board of directors of Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers voted to close the Greenwich Village hospital’s inpatient services, including acute, rehabilitation and behavioral health care services.   

Only several dozen patients are still in the 700-bed facility, which has sought bankruptcy protection.

Since it opened in 1849, the famed Manhattan hospital has treated everyone from cholera victims and survivors of the Titanic in 1912 to hundreds of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. It also was at the forefront of the early response to the AIDS epidemic.