Affirmation of Community Service Society Amicus Brief

    COURT OF APPEALS 

STATE OF NEW YORK 
  

CAMPAIGN TO SAVE OUR PUBLIC HOSPITALS - QUEENS 

COALITION, an unincorporated association, by its member 

WILLIAM MALLOY, CAMPAIGN TO SAVE OUR PUBLIC 

HOSPITALS - CONEY ISLAND HOSPITAL COALITION, 

an unincorporated association, by its member PHILIP R. 

MELTING, ANNE YELLING, and MARILYN MOSSOP, 

Plaintiffs-Respondents-Cross-Appellants : Index No. 

10763/96 
-against- 

RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI, THE MAYOR OF THE CITY OF 

NEW YORK, NEW YORK CITY HEALTH AND HOSPITALS 

CORPORATION, and NEW YORK CITY ECONOMIC 

DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, 

Defendants-Appellants-Cross Respondents 

  

ARLENE KOHN GILBERT, an attorney duly admitted to practice before the Courts of the State of New 

York, affirms under penalty of perjury that: 

1. I am an attorney on the staff of the Community Service Society (“CSS”) and submit this 

affirmation in support of the motion by CSS, together with the Public Health Association of New York 

City and the Committee of Interns and Residents, for leave to file an amicus curiae brief in this action. 

2. CSS is a social welfare advocacy organization with over 150 years of service to the city and 

experience derived from that service. The Society, in identifying problems that continue to create a 

poverty class in New York City, has addressed issues of health care need and access to service; its social  



workers continue to assist indigent families to obtain needed health care when they have trouble 

obtaining it. The Committee of Interns and Residents (“CIR”) is a recognized nationwide collective 

bargaining labor union, with 2500 resident physicians employed by the Health and Hospitals Corporation 

(“HHC”) and providing the bulk of physicians services in the public hospitals. The Committee believes 

that HHC’s extensive and vital public hospital network will, if Coney Island Hospital is privatized, create 

a major change in delivery of service which at very least demands full public debate and analysis by the 

state legislature which created the corporation. The Public Health Association of New York City 

(“PHANYC?”) is an organization of health professionals affiliated with the American Public Health 

Association, whose more than 400 members, physiscians, nurses, educators, researchers, health 

administrators, students and consumers of health care, spend time educating the community about 

relevant health care issues and advocating for improvements. The membership works with coalitions to 

establish a responsive and equitable health care system in the city and is concerned with the impact that 

privatization of CIH will have both locally and throughout the city. 

3. These efforts by amici are also in keeping with the statutory establishment of the Health and 

Hospitals Corporation as a public benefit corporation to assure, as stated in the legislative act 

establishing the HHC, “provision and delivery of high quality... care and treatment... particularly to those 

who can least afford such services”. 

Amici are aware of the potential impact of privatization on those community members, many of 

whom are our clients and whose health care services have already been affected by periodic city budget 

cuts. This background will provide the court with additional information as to both current and probable 

future impact on a community besieged by diminished social services. 

4. Amici will also present the historic and statutory responsibilities in which the city and state 

are implicated as the inheritors of the duty of ‘caring’ for the poor, a concept and a term that certainly 

includes avoiding controllable illness today as it has meant preventing epidemics in the past.  



  

5. Attorneys for the appealing parties in this case consented to CSS filing a brief amicus curiae. 

6. Consequently, CSS, PHANYC and CIR respectfully request that the Court grant this motion 

for leave to file an amicus curiae brief. 

7. A copy of the proposed brief is being filed and is attached herewith. 

/ | 

Arlene Kohn Gilbert Lalfitlert 

Dated: New York, New York 

December 17, 1998