In recent weeks, media have reported on community and political reactions to the announced closure of UPMC Braddock, and some editorials and columns criticizing the decision have used selective and inaccurate data and distorted facts. Going forward, we want to ensure that the central facts stay in focus.

UPMC is preserving the jobs from UPMC Braddock. In the current recession, job cuts are a devastating reality that touch every sector, but rather than cutting the 650 jobs at UPMC Braddock, UPMC will offer willing and qualified employees opportunities elsewhere within UPMC. This at a time when 17.5 percent of the nation's workforce is unemployed or underemployed. UPMC did not cut jobs to save costs or reduce losses.

UPMC is maintaining and strengthening health care in the Braddock area, not abandoning it. The false belief is that a hospital is equivalent to health care. The reality is that only about 12 percent of the population uses a hospital as their usual source of care. Almost 70 percent use outpatient and physician services, making access to outpatient services a much more important factor in delivering quality health care to a community.

There are currently about 60 sites where outpatient/physician care is available within the UPMC Braddock market and these services are being maintained. In fact, UPMC is committed to expanding open-access care available in the evenings and on weekends.

UPMC will support economic development in the Braddock area. The concern expressed is that by closing its underutilized hospital UPMC is impairing economic development in the region. On the contrary, UPMC is prepared to work with regional governments and community economic development groups and to donate the facility to such purposes as will advance the community's economic future.

Since 1996, UPMC has invested more than $60 million in efforts and initiatives aimed at making Braddock thrive. But we have not been successful. Ultimately, underutilized hospitals are a wasted expense when health-care costs have become the most significant threat to the national economy. Hospitals that lack the volume to keep the skills of its staff well-honed are not optimal care environments.

At UPMC Braddock, where the average daily census of medical surgical patients is in the 40s, the volume is insufficient to assure the type of excellent care that UPMC should provide. This, combined with the outmigration of patients from this region to other hospitals by a 4-to-1 margin, are the reasons for closing the inpatient facility.

These essential facts need to be kept in focus as we continue the discussion on this issue:

• UPMC is preserving the jobs of UPMC Braddock employees -- not eliminating or outsourcing them.

• UPMC is working to maintain and strengthen health care in the Braddock area -- not abandoning it.

• UPMC is on record with specific offers to continue to assist the community with economic development.

If the closure of UPMC Braddock was about anything other than the facility's underutilization, UPMC would not have taken the steps it has to preserve jobs. We remain committed to working with community and government leaders to achieve the best possible resolution to this challenging situation.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.