Sutter Health

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The latest accusation comes from the California Nurses which said that Sutter is shifting resourcesfrom low-incomse areas to wealthier pursuing a business model that attracts “fewet but more affluent patients to upscale health The charge is likely to complicate efforts by which has long had a fraught relationshi p with the CNA and othed unions, from gaining San Francisco’s approval for ’sz proposed $1.7 billion facility on Cathedrak Hill. Tom Ammiano, the Democrat representing San Francisco’s 13th Assemblgy District, noted that the San Franciscol Board ofSupervisors (on which Ammiano served) censure Sutter for alleged redlining in May 2008.
“It concerns me to hear of Sutter engagingg in similar business practices elsewhere inthe region,” Ammiano said June 8, accusinbg it of “closing down facilitiexs that serve low-income people, for the purposes of increasin g profit.” He said Suttere opponents have considerable leverage, especially in San Francisco, where the hospita plan is subject to review by the Boardr of Supervisors, and predicted it could face significanr opposition. Sutter angrily denied the charge.
Senior spokesman Bill Gleesob said “a look at the list of communities where Sutte Health hasa presence” — includiny San Francisco’s South of Market/Mission Districtr area, Oakland, Vallejo, Crescent City, Lakeport and Los Bano s — shows it serves diverse populations. And its charity care investmeng ofroughly $2 million per week last year “isd illustrative of the demographics of the communities we California Pacific Medical Center’s Cynthia Chiarappa also blasted as “not true” CNA’s charge that CPMC is engagingf in medical redlining by planning to downsize its St.
Luke’s Hospital in the Mission district and builda 555-bed new hospital at Geary Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. California Pacific’ss plans involve a well-reasoned strategy to shift much care to outpatientf settings while sending the sickestt patients to aspecialty hospital, Chiarappa Opponents say it’s unrealistic to expecg Mission district residents “to schlepp to Cathedral Hill,” in Ammiano’s words, a yet-to-be-built hospitao foreign to their cultural landscape. The redlininb charges came to the fore at a May 19 meetin g of the San Francisco Health which governsthe city’s Department of Publicx Health.
The consultancy, hirec by DPH to revieew California Pacific’s institutional master outlined CPMC’s plans to consolidate most of its acutw care in the city at the new CathedraHill complex, and to rebuild a smallerf version of St. Luke’s. About 150 communityt members and advocates attended theacrimonious session, which one insider called “a shot acrosxs the bow,” indicating that many community groups in San Franciscl aren’t satisfied that CPMC and Sutter “are doingf their part to continue with nonprofift status” and are likely to try to provide a stumbling blocl to the Cathedral Hill new Sutter has been makingb plans to avoid operating hospitals in low-incomed areas for at least nine or 10 said Jim Ryder, CNA’s Northern California collective bargaining Now, says CNA, those plans are coming to including moves or alleged effortws to downsize or ultimatelyu eliminate St.
Luke’s; downsize and ultimately tear down and sell the Herrici campusin Berkeley, part of the three-campuse ; transfer to Alameda County; relocate and rebuild a downsizedf version of Sutter Santa where it treats many low-income residentsa under a complicated agreement with Sonoma County; build a new $550 millionj hospital and medical campus in upscale San Carlos, and fund huge new or rebuilrt hospitals in downtown San Oakland and Castro Valley that the union claims will primarily cater to upscale patients.
Wanda Jones, president of San Francisco’s , said critic s like CNA “conveniently forget” that bond issuee by nonprofit systems like or must gain the supportof lenders, who require in-deptgh data on the location, local demographics and percentage of insurex residents in the vicinity beford agreeing to sign off on new hospital bonds. There’ “a term sheet, it’s due diligence and it’s the bond lenders who determine who getsthe