PITTSBURGH — A judge rebuffed efforts by a county councilman and residents to stop a hospital from closing in one of the city's poorest suburbs, saying it's his job to determine if doing so is legal not whether it is "unwise or cruel."

Allegheny County Judge Gene Strassburger ruled Friday that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has the right to close UPMC Braddock as scheduled on Sunday, under a 2007 bond agreement with Bank of New York Mellon approved by a county authority. UPMC announced plans in October to close the hospital saying it lost $27 million in the last six years, and was projected to lose $50 million more in the next six.

The 123-bed hospital is all but closed already. It stopped accepting patients two weeks ago; most of its 650 employees have moved to other locations; and only its emergency room remains open.

Residents have argued the closing is also unfair and discriminatory because about two-thirds of Braddock's 1,900 residents are black.