Nurses Object To Sutter's Plan For Closing San Leandro Hospital And Downsizing Eden

Main Category: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 10 May 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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The California Nurses Association filed formal objections with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors today, challenging the efforts of Sutter Health to close San Leandro Hospital and significantly downsize its sister facility Eden Medical Center.

RNs say that this plan is "a significant loss of public health resources for Alameda County, and an unwise move in the face of ongoing threats to public health."

The nurses are objecting to Sutter's application to rebuild Eden Medical Center as a facility with dozens of fewer beds, and are demanding the Board of Supervisors reject the project's environmental impact review. Sutter aims to re build Eden as a luxury hospital with fewer beds to serve a select clientele, and hopes to simultaneously close down San Leandro Hospital, Eden's sister hospital, whose emergency room provides care to an underserved population, seeing over 27,000 patients annually.

The RNs filed preliminary objections with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors calling for rejection of Sutter's permit to rebuild Eden Medical Center. The objections assert the environmental impact report is deceptive and misleading by only considering the impact of its efforts to downsize Eden Medical Center, and not considering the related impacts that will occur if it is able to also end San Leandro's 50-year history as an acute-care facility serving patients from across the East Bay.

The loss of services will be all the more worrisome given the cumulative effect of Sutter's plans for its Oakland facilities. The chain has announced its hope of closing the Herrick campus of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, losing at minimum 36 psychiatric beds, and of redefining Summit Medical Center from a general hospital to one more focused on higher-end services, including all- private patient rooms that will not be accessible to Medicare, Medi-Cal and other federal health program beneficiaries.

The supervisors are scheduled to vote on Sutter's permit on May 12, having granted the request by the nurses for a delay in order to allow the community to register its concerns and objections to the proposal. A protest rally will be held outside the County building at noon.

What: Rally to Save San Leandro Hospital
When: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - Noon
Where: Alameda County Admin Building 1221 Oak Street, Oakland

As word of Sutter's attempt to close San Leandro has spread, community furor has been growing including:

- A resolution passed by the San Leandro City Council and supported by the mayor calling on Sutter to keep the local hospital open as a full-service acute-care hospital,
- Two recent healthcare town halls, one called by Assemblywoman Ellen Corbett and one by San Leandro Councilman Michael Gregory, where MDs, RNs, and patients charged Sutter with lies and subterfuge in its efforts to close the facility.
- A rally of more than 100 RNs and unions at the Alameda County Board of Supervisors calling for the rejection of Sutter's permit on April 28

While the entire Bay Area would suffer from the loss of San Leandro Hospital as an acute-care facility, the burden would fall especially hard on the patients of color who make up the majority of its surrounding population. In 2008, African Americans constituted nearly 49.8 percent of the patient population at San Leandro, with patients of "other race" being 17.7 percent and Caucasians constituting 23.6 percent.

By contrast, Sutter's favored campus at Eden Medical Center serves a 65.5 percent white patient population, with African-Americans at 19.1percent and "other race" at 7.8 percent, according to the latest available figures from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

"This racial disparity is factual evidence of medical redlining by Sutter Health and exactly mirrors their past behavior in San Francisco," said Jane Sandoval, an RN who works at St. Lukes' Hospital. In 2008, Sutter was censured for medical redlining by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors over its attempts to end services at the Mission District's St. Luke's Hospital and concentrate them in a wealthier, whiter neighborhood.

The resolution noted that Sutter is, "abandoning services provided to uninsured people, Hispanic and African American residents, and medically underserved neighborhoods in San Francisco and expanding hospital operations for access by insured, middle and upper-income, non-Hispanic, largely non-African American residents." In the face of community outrage, Sutter pledged to keep St. Luke's Hospital open.

"As an emergency department RN, I know firsthand that our facility is frequently impacted due to the large numbers of clients we serve," said Arlene Lum, a San Leandro hospital nurse. "If our hospital closes, these services will need to be distributed to other hospitals which are also currently impacted, causing even longer waits and further delay of services, delays which may ultimately cause increased suffering to the public."

"The San Leandro-Eden deal that Sutter is trying to push through the board is an imminent threat to the public health. By stripping the East Bay of one of its few remaining emergency rooms and acute-care hospitals, Sutter is harming our ability to prepare for and respond to a public health crisis, and is sentencing these patients to second-class healthcare status," said Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association.

Sutter hopes to shut down San Leandro Hospital as early as June 30, 2009.

Source
California Nurses Association

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