Save San Leandro Hospital

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 28 Apr 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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RNs, patients rally Tuesday at Alameda Board to stop Sutter as momentum to save landmark hospital swells

Nurses, patients, healthcare workers, community leaders, and concerned citizens will hold a protest rally Tuesday morning at the Alameda County Board of Supervisors' office in Oakland. The action, one of several occurring this week, is being held on the day that the board is scheduled to vote on the fate of the 122-bed San Leandro Hospital (SLH).

As many as 20,000 patients use the emergency room annually, and many thousands more use the acute-care services offered. Sutter's plan is to close San Leandro Hospital on June 30, and to get approval from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for a rebuild of Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley. Nurses are also concerned that Sutter's practice of closing hospitals in medically underserved areas such as St. Luke's in the Mission District of San Francisco is medical redlining.

"Our community needs a fully functioning acute-care hospital" said Carol Barazi, a long time resident and RN at SLH. "If there is a major earthquake before the new Eden is built with 48 fewer beds, and the current Eden Hospital, which sits on the fault line, is destroyed, and SLH is no longer an acute care hospital, where is everyone going to go? The county is already bursting at the seams and won't to handle it. "

WHAT: Rally to Save San Leandro Hospital
WHEN: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 9:30 a.m.
WHERE: Alameda County Admin Building
1221 Oak Street, Oakland

The possible closure will also be the topic at the San Leandro City Council meeting tonight as well as regional health forum hosted by City Councilman Michael Gregory on April 29. This past Saturday, a group of 50 nurses and patients placed several hundred Save San Leandro Hospital posters in homes and businesses throughout the city, and collected over 1,000 signatures on petitions in a massive grassroots effort.

Other Sutter hospitals represented by CNA/NNOC include St. Luke's Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, San Leandro Hospital, Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, Sutter Delta in Antioch, and Sutter Solano in Vallejo.

Representing some 86,000 RNs in all 50 states, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee is the largest and fastest-growing association of direct-care RNs in the nation. Learn more at http://www.SaveSanLeandroHospital.com.

Source
California Nurses Association

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