Uploaded February 2014 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
'Don't Close Lake Shore Hospital,' that was the rally slogan. Over a thousand people from the north end of Chautauqua County gathered at the invite of GOP State Senator Kathy Young.
The back story of how this for-profit hospital got into the fix it's in is far more interesting than the content of this rally. Millions of dollars of public money poured into the privately-owned facility, then it goes belly up. It would take an alert grand jury and an honest U.S. attorney to sort it out.
The privatizers were up on stage, bleating about the consequences of their own privatization agenda. Two weeks later, these hypocrites (George Borello, Vanstrom, & County Executive Vince Horrigan) vote to privatize the publicly owned nursing home.
But in this condensed video there are many eloquent statements by paramedics and staff who know how valuable a hospital (with a new emergency room yet) is to a community -- and especially the rural community of north Chautauqua.
The rally was 2-hours long; we concentrated our cameras on the people in the audience. Our sense of the rally early on that it was a GOP gathering, designed to let off steam, win some points for looking like the GOP was doing something, stall for a while, make all the GOP top dogs and up-and-coming dogs look like populists for a day. Above all, let off steam; and don't take the heat for this disaster.
yoryevrah
'Don't Close Lake Shore Hospital,' that was the rally slogan. Over a thousand people from the north end of Chautauqua County gathered at the invite of GOP State Senator Kathy Young.
The back story of how this for-profit hospital got into the fix it's in is far more interesting than the content of this rally. Millions of dollars of public money poured into the privately-owned facility, then it goes belly up. It would take an alert grand jury and an honest U.S. attorney to sort it out.
The privatizers were up on stage, bleating about the consequences of their own privatization agenda. Two weeks later, these hypocrites (George Borello, Vanstrom, & County Executive Vince Horrigan) vote to privatize the publicly owned nursing home.
But in this condensed video there are many eloquent statements by paramedics and staff who know how valuable a hospital (with a new emergency room yet) is to a community -- and especially the rural community of north Chautauqua.
The rally was 2-hours long; we concentrated our cameras on the people in the audience. Our sense of the rally early on that it was a GOP gathering, designed to let off steam, win some points for looking like the GOP was doing something, stall for a while, make all the GOP top dogs and up-and-coming dogs look like populists for a day. Above all, let off steam; and don't take the heat for this disaster.
yoryevrah
