On November 16, the CIR National Executive Committee released the following statement on the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in lower Manhattan:
Statement by CIR Executive Committee on the Eviction of Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park
Early yesterday morning, a large NYPD police force raided the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park, where protesters have been demonstrating for two months against rising economic inequality. This raid in New York City comes only a day after the Occupy site in Oakland, California was raided for the second time.
In a statement, Mayor Bloomberg cited the “health and safety hazard” at Zuccotti Park as the basis for the police action.
As physicians, we need to call attention to the threats to the public’s health and safety which we believe far exceed those at Zuccotti Park.
Protestors at Zuccotti Park have received primary care from a wide number of health care providers, including free influenza vaccinations, which far exceeded the level of primary care access available to many of the people we serve in poor communities like Oakland, Brooklyn, and the Bronx.
In these communities, too many of the 99 percent are suffering from unregulated environmental health issues and a frayed healthcare safety net. If Mayor Bloomberg wanted to address an emergency public health issue, he could have sent the NYPD after Bronx landlords whose poor environmental standards have led to epidemic rates of childhood asthma, or financial consultants seeking to profit off struggling safety net hospitals in Brooklyn. In addition, current proposals in Congress to slash Medicare and Medicaid would do significant harm to the health of our communities and the 99% of the people who rely on the physicians trained by these programs.
As citizens protest the policies that exacerbate poverty and deepen public health crises, city officials unfortunately see silencing this speech as a more important use of public resources than initiatives that could address inadequate healthcare in our poorest communities.
As physicians serving in safety net hospitals across the country, we call on our public officials to focus funds toward alleviating public health crises in poor communities.
National Executive Committee
Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare
November 16, 2011
Download the CIR Statement on Occupy Wall Street Eviction.
