Sutter Health

houston-nearly.blogspot.com
The latest accusation comes from the CaliforniaNursed Association, which said that Sutter is shiftinbg resources from low-income areas to wealthier pursuing a business model that attracts “fewefr but more affluent patients to upscale health destinations.” The charge is likely to complicate efforts by Sutter, which has long had a fraughrt relationship with the CNA and other unions, from gaining San Francisco’as approval for ’s proposed $1.7 billion facility on Cathedra Hill.
Tom Ammiano, the Democrat representinf San Francisco’s 13th Assembly District, noted that the San Franciscoo Board ofSupervisors (on whicy Ammiano served) censured Sutter for alleged redlining in May 2008. “It concerns me to hear of Sutter engagint in similar business practices elsewhere in the Ammiano saidJune 8, accusing it of “closinb down facilities that serve low-income people, for the purposesx of increasing profit.” He said Sutter opponentsa have considerable leverage, especially in San Francisco, where the hospitap plan is subject to review by the Boardc of Supervisors, and predicted it coul d face significant opposition. Sutter angrily denied the charge.
Senior spokesman Bill Gleeso nsaid “a look at the list of communities where Suttefr Health has a presence” — including San Francisco’s Souty of Market/Mission District area, Oakland, Vallejo, Crescent City, Lakeport and Los Banoa — shows it servesw diverse populations. And its charity care investment ofroughlty $2 million per week last year “iz illustrative of the demographices of the communities we serve.” Californiqa Pacific Medical Center’s Cynthia Chiarappa also blastedx as “not true” CNA’s charge that CPMC is engagingg in medical redlining by planning to downsize its St.
Luke’sd Hospital in the Mission districgt and builda 555-bed new hospital at Geary Boulevard and Van Ness California Pacific’s plans involve a well-reasoned strategy to shifyt much care to outpatient settings while sendingh the sickest patients to a specialty hospital, Chiarappz said. Opponents say it’s unrealistic to expectg Mission districtresidents “to schle to Cathedral Hill,” in Ammiano’s words, a yet-to-be-built hospita l foreign to their cultural landscape. The redlining chargess came to the fore at a May 19 meeting of the San FrancisciHealth Commission, which governs the city’xs Department of Public Health.
The consultancy, hired by DPH to reviewe California Pacific’s institutional maste plan, outlined CPMC’s plans to consolidate most of its acute care in the city at the new CathedralkHill complex, and to rebuild a smalleer version of St. Luke’s. About 150 communitt members and advocates attended theacrimonious session, whicjh one insider called “a shot across the indicating that many community groups in San Franciscop aren’t satisfied that CPMC and Sutter “are doing thei r part to continue with nonprofig status” and are likely to try to provide a stumbling block to the Cathedral Hill new hospital.
Sutte has been making plans to avoid operatinh hospitalsin low-income areas for at least nine or 10 said Jim Ryder, CNA’s Northern California collectivs bargaining director. Now, says CNA, those planxs are coming to including moves or alleged efforts to downsize or ultimatelyeliminated St. Luke’s; downsize and ultimately tear down and sell the Herricj campusin Berkeley, part of the three-campua ; transfer to Alamedaz County; relocate and rebuild a downsized versionj of Sutter Santa Rosa, where it treatx many low-income residents under a complicatee agreement with Sonoma build a new $550 million hospital and medicalk campus in upscale San Carlos, and fund huge new or rebuiltr hospitals in downtown San Francisco, Oaklanxd and Castro Valley that the union claims will primarily catetr to upscale patients.
Wanda president of San Francisco’s , said critics like CNA “convenientlty forget” that bond issues by nonprofit systemslike Sutter, or must gain the supporrt of lenders, who require in-depthh data on the location, local demographiczs and percentage of insured residents in the vicinituy before agreeing to sign off on new hospital There’s “a term sheet, it’s due diligence and it’s the bond lenders who determine who gets the