WAIVER EXTENDED TO FAIRMONT UNTIL 2020 COULD BE A GAME CHANGER
The threat of closing rehabilitation services at Fairmont Hospital because of California’s 2013 deadline to seismically retrofit state’s health care centers was a major talking point in the county’s cap. Showering money on Fairmont is not feasible, the county says, and utilizing San Leandro Hospital’s facility, itself with a uncertain future, is a deal that was said to be the best possible at the time, but maybe it is no longer.

This is all been highlighted by some extraordinary political dueling that seems currently in State Senator Ellen Corbett’s favor. Rewind a few days ago and the former mayor of San Leandro took quite a shot from Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi when she failed to approve her own co-sponsored bill with Corbett in committee. Hayashi had a competing bill in the works and somewhat humiliated Corbett as the vote fell one vote shy of moving to the full Assembly.

Both Corbett and Hayashi seem to be in a battle of political tit-for-tat while vying to be the savior of San Leandro Hospital. Corbett’s announcement last Thursday, though, may be a game changer forcing all sides of the political and corporate structure to rethink their plans moving forward.

If Hayashi was able to thwart Corbett’s bill to give San Leandro more time to find a solution for saving San Leandro Hospital, the favor was returned just as Sacramento headed to an early holiday weekend. The offices of both Corbett and Hayashi then engaged in dueling press releases criticizing each others commitment to San Leandro Hospital. “I am dismayed and saddened that Senator Corbett would rather send out a press release attacking my commitment to the residents of San Leandro instead of working with me to strengthen her bill,” Hayashi said in the statement.

Not to be outdone, Corbett announced Thursday, she attained a waiver from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development allowing Fairmont Hospital to set a deadline to file its plans to retrofit the facility until at least 2013, effectively trumping the bill authored by Hayashi that would have performed nearly the same function. In hindsight, Corbett had signaled the possibility of rendering the state-mandated deadline moot nearly a month ago.

The Citizen reported June 10 that Eden Township Director Carole Rogers mentioned during one of the board’s hospital hearings that Corbett intimated the state would be far less rigid in holding the state’s medical facilities to the 2013 deadline to seismically retrofit. According to Rogers, Corbett had told her less than half of the state’s facilities have not filed any plans to retrofit.

It is now unclear what, if anything, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will act upon July 14 when they meet for a regular session in Oakland. Board President Alice Lai-Bitker had stated she would urge for the board to rescind the county’s offer regarding Fairmont on the grounds that new options may have surfaced, but Corbett’s bombshell blows the county’s rhetoric of quickly closing rehab services on the assumption retrofitting was not economically feasible in the short term out of the water.

Unfortunately, the entity in control of this entire situation is not a government agency, but Sutter Health. They won’t talk and probably wisely so until all the dust settles and a clear path for their interests is seen there isn’t much for them to do but play wait-and-see.