SF Board of Supervisors President Blasts Sutter/CPMC

Public Health Director Mitch Katz asked to begin search for providers that will “better serve the needs of the City of San Francisco."

San Francisco- Yesterday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (BOS) held two separate hearings to discuss concerns surrounding California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) and St. Luke's Hospital, two San Francisco facilities affiliated with Sutter Health. The first hearing examined continuing labor relations problems at CPMC; the second was a discussion on the potential impact on access to critical health care services of Sutter’s proposal to merge with St. Luke’s.

Although no Sutter representatives were in attendance, both President Peskin and Supervisor Tom Ammiano expressed extreme displeasure at Sutter CPMC’s apparent breach of both the spirit and the letter of its labor contract with caregivers represented by SEIU United Healthcare Workers – West, won after a nine-week strike at all three campuses. Caregivers allege that CPMC is aggressively violating provisions of the settlement allowing the workers to organize, including unlawfully interrogating and threatening employees who express interest in joining the union. “I’ve worked at CPMC for 38 years,” said Helen York-Jones, Food Service worker and Shop Steward at the California campus. “I want to know - why is CPMC fighting us at every turn when all we want to do is work with them to make our hospital a better place?” After hearing reports of CPMC’s union-busting activities, Board President Peskin asked the City’s Public Health Director to work with the Health Commission to begin the search for health care providers to replace Sutter and better deliver services to the San Francisco community.

In the second hearing, Supervisor Tom Ammiano publicly directed Sutter Health to provide a written guarantee that the hospital will not cut any services at St. Luke’s Hospital without submitting to the appropriate public process, saying that any changes to the hospital’s services must go through the Department of Public Health. Sutter Health, the Sacramento-based hospital system, gave notice on July 20th of its intent to eliminate St. Luke’s as a separate entity and merge it into CPMC. Merger documents filed with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer raise doubts about Sutter’s commitment to keep St. Luke’s open as a full-service hospital. The elimination of essential inpatient services at St. Luke’s would reduce access to health care for the underserved communities of San Francisco that have historically been the hospital’s charitable focus.

Because Sutter Health did not send any representatives to today’s hearing, a re-hearing is scheduled for September 11, 2006.