Roosevelt Island Coler Residents Demand Nursing Home Lives Matter - Organizing Virtual And Live Protest Saturday December 19 To Stop NYC From Moving Covid 19 Patients Into Their Coler Nursing Facility Home

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The Open Doors Reality Poets at Roosevelt Island Coler Nursing Facility report:

Coler Rehabilitation & Nursing Care Center is making contingency plans to re-open the emergency Covid hospital inside Coler. Coler is not a hospital—it is home to over 500 vulnerable residents with disabilities who are at high risk of serious illness and death from Covid.

Saturday December 19th at 2pm, Nursing Home Lives Matter (NHLM)—Coler residents and concerned neighbors will gather to present a letter of objection to the reopening of the Covid hospital within Coler and hear testimonials from inside the nursing home. This event will be simultaneously staged inside 

Coler’s courtyard. Outside allies will be separated from residents by a fence that has kept them/us locked inside the home for over 270 days. Please wear a mask and maintain social distance.  

The event will be live-streamed on Facebook and Instagram @opendoorsnyc. Nursing home residents, family, friends and workers tell us your nursing home lives matter story with #NursingHomeLivesMatter.

Nursing Home Lives Matter seeks to protect nursing home residents and workers who have been systematically disempowered and endangered by public officials and health care administrators. This will be our inaugural public event.  

NHLM founder Vincent Pierce is a father, music producer, youth educator, gun violence survivor and OPEN DOORS Reality Poet. He’s also a nursing home resident. Encouraged by the Black Lives Matter movement, Vince launched #NursingHomeLivesMatter in response to the city’s mishandling of the pandemic and its devastating impact on the primarily Black and Brown residents of Coler nursing home. 

During the height of the pandemic, government officials and Health + Hospitals administrators lied to us when they said they weren’t going to bring Covid patients into Coler. We were left in the dark as hundreds of Covid patients were moved into our home; the infected were left in bedrooms with the uninfected; quadriplegic residents were kept in bed for days, at risk of pressure sores becoming fatal; Coler’s administration lied about dire PPE and staffing shortages and grossly underreported the number of deaths. For months, we have been cut off from family and friends and are only allowed outdoors for a few hours a day in an area defined by police tape. We ask you to stand with us and take action against the decision-makers that seem to not care about the majority Black and Brown population living and working inside of Coler nursing home. We deserve to be treated equally and with respect. — NHLM Founder Vincent Pierce

Words of support from our elected officials:

I strongly oppose transferring outside patients to the Coler/RIMC campus. I call on Mayor de Blasio and Dr. Mitchell Katz to work closely with local elected officials and community leaders to address these significant concerns and balance the need to control the pandemic without putting this special population at risk. — Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer

It is clear that Coler is not appropriate for COVID patients. There is a significant health threat to those inside Coler who are high risk patients living with chronic illness. As a founder of the Coler Task Force, I stand with Roosevelt Island neighbors and Coler residents in calling upon Coler Hospital and H+H leadership to show that nursing home lives matter. — Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright

Last April, when Covid-19 patients were first moved into the Roosevelt Medical Center inside the Coler facility,  a NYC Health & Hospitals Corp spokesperson responded to the health and safety concerns of Coler nursing home residents saying:

To address the need for ICU space in our hospitals, NYC Health + Hospitals has moved covid-19 patients to the Roosevelt Island Medical Center. The Medical Center is separate from the post-acute, nursing facility known as NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler. Roosevelt Island Medical Center is in a separate area with no overlap or shared space. No covid-19 patients were moved into the nursing facility.

​NYC Health + Hospitals facilities are on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic and our dedicated employees are working day and night to ensure that all our patients receive the individual care they need. We’re doing everything we can to keep our employees protected with the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). Every health care worker in our system who needs PPE is able to receive what they require.

Filmmakers Alexis Neophytides and Open Doors Reality poet Andres "Jay" Molina are currently filming a documentary about life inside Coler during the early stages of the Coronavirus Pandemic last spring. Here's a snippet from the forthcoming documentary FIRE THROUGH DRY GRASS,

  Fire Through Dry Grass – Trailer from The Big Chair on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for more to come.