That is the sound of everyday Americans protesting the closure of Philadelphia's Hanaman Hospital, a city fixture for the better part of two centuries.

As the primary teaching hospital affiliated

with Drexel University College of Medicine, the closure will displace 571 medical residents.

But more than that, it will eliminate a vital resource for the hospital's largely black and

Latino patients. Located just off the Vine Street

Expressway, the hospital is ideally situated to accept patients with acute trauma

for a difference of a few seconds, is literally life or death.

This has been like working in a mass unit for the last 15 years, so the only reason really

that we're here is for the patient population because we believe in taking care of those that are in need.

In a matter of life and death, minutes saves lives or causes lives to be lost.

So stabilizing and transporting out, that's minutes lost.

That was a nurse who has worked at Hanuman for 20 years.

I spoke to her this past week when the burning campaign headed to Philly to

lend its support to protest against the hospital closure. You see it probably won't

surprise you to learn that the story of Hanaman's bankruptcy is a little more

complicated than just profits versus losses. Less than two years ago a California-based

private equity tycoon named Joel Friedman purchased Hanaman from its previous owner, tenant health care.

What Friedman is doing now looks suspiciously like stripping Hanahnemann for parts,

regardless of the cost to the community.

More than perhaps any other industry,

health care brings into relief

the tension between the needs of the vast majority of people and the profits of a tiny minority.

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