“They say cut back, we say fight back,” chanted the crowd of demonstrators who assembled beneath a sea of red New York State Nurses Association flags outside the entrance to North Central Bronx Hospital earlier this afternoon to protest the closure of the hospital’s labor and delivery department and all related newborn services.

Last Thursday evening, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) instructed staffers in the closing departments to report to Jacobi Medical Center starting Monday morning. Members of the New York State Nurses Association, the District 37 Community Board, and District 11 City Council candidate Andrew Cohen, who is supported by those unions, said they were outraged by the lack of notice, calling the decision “dangerous” and “abrupt.”

“There was no public hearing or transparency,” said Jill Furillo, a nurse at North Central Bronx Hospital (NYCBH) and executive director of the New York Nurses Association. “A week ago Bloomberg said you can’t have a hospital on every corner. Well this corner and this community needs this hospital and needs these services!” she said.

The HHC released a statement earlier this morning specifying that the shift will “consolidate” services at Jacobi Medical Center, which was responsible for 1,900 deliveries last year. “With consolidation of staff at Jacobi there will be sufficient capacity to handle the projected additional deliveries,” the statement said. “No staff member who works in the NCBH unit will lose their job.” (HHC says they will provide a shuttle service from North Central Bronx to Jacobi.)

According to Mary Fitzgerald, a nurse at Montefiore’s Moses campus, patients normally referred to NCBH, will now be sent nearly four miles further to Jacobi hospital since Montefiore is not equipped with delivery rooms or neonatal care.

“This hospital was responsible for 1,600 births last year, so it is really a vital service to the community,” she said. “Jacobi is on the other side of the Bronx!”

Brooklyn Council member and Public Advocate candidate, Letitia James, led the crowd in a chant. “We have got to stand together, and demand that they keep open labor and delivery services here in the Bronx,” she said.

According to some, the loss of the two units may be the beginning of the end for NCBH which was confronted with massive cuts in 1999 and later faced shut down in 2006.

Furillo said the closure is a part of a larger “patient care crisis” now plaguing already under served areas throughout the city. Sarita Jones, a Jacobi hospital nurse of 11 years, said there are rumors that several of the hospital’s other departments are up for closure.

“This is part of the dismantling of services, one-by-one,” Fitzgerald said. “It will have a cascade effect of closing other services,” she said.

Jahir, 32, and his pregnant wife who live in the apartment across the street, were the first to be turned away from the facility following the official closure. “I am really upset that they are taking it away,” he said. “This is not good for our community.”

Jahir said his first son, now 5, was born at NCBH.