SAVE SAN LEANDRO HOSPITAL
Feb. 8, 2012 | A settlement in the dispute between the Eden Township Healthcare District and Sutter Health over title to San Leandro Hospital may soon be announced, according to sources familiar with details of their negotiations.
During a meeting of the San Leandro City Council last Monday Councilman Michael Gregory alluded to the existence of a potential settlement in the nearly three year old conflict to save acute care and emergency room services at the facility. San Leandro Hospital resides in Gregory’s district.
“Obviously it’s not final enough to report out,” Gregory said afterwards. “I’m not allowed to share details. They cannot be shared because they are not known.”
Gregory said the District was hoping to make an announcement as early as Wednesday in time for a public meeting in San Leandro to discuss San Leandro Hospital and a proposed merger of St. Rose Hospital in Hayward with the District.
“Is this something the community can work with?” Gregory was asked Monday night to which he did not respond but nodded negatively. He then signaled part of the solution for San Leandro Hospital will rest with the Alameda County Medical Center while lauding their efforts and leadership.
“It could very well be one of these success stories where they go from full neglect to a powerful public institution,” Gregory said cryptically.
Sources with knowledge of Sutter’s perspective in the negotiations said they have been ongoing and preceded the District’s Jan. 30 decision to petition the State Supreme Court to accept the case for review. The move was seen as nothing more than a hedge by the District to file the petition on the last possible day following the state court of appeals ruling against them last November.
Gregory said he doesn’t believe the question of San Leandro Hospital’s fate will ever reach the state’s high court. “I’m an optimist,” he said, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
According to sources with knowledge of the negotiations, the tentative plan would partly include these points:
The District would turn over title of San Leandro Hospital to Sutter Health as detailed in two unsuccessful court decisions. The District, though, would not pay damages associated with the case.
Sutter would agree to keep the facility’s emergency room open on a limited scale and introduce urgent care for one year. Beyond those basic terms, the eventually fate, according to the sources, would again be under Sutter’s control.
The proposal would mean a curt and unsatisfying end to the long-running disagreement over the hospital’s fate that attracted a nearly universal outpouring dissent by hospital workers and community members over Sutter’s hegemony and tactics.
ebcitizen.com 
Boy, are you wrong. More directly, I'd like to see you and the misguided people who share your sentiments say these things at a well-attended public meeting in San Leandro and see what response you get.
Every day San Leandro Hospital has been open since October 2009, which is when Sutter first announced they would be closing vital services at SLH, is a day where lives of Alameda County citizens were saved, their pain was reduced, and they were comforted by their convenient community hospital.
Unions don't have the juice to keep SLH open by themselves. Only an outraged and energized community could do that. Those outraged and energized Healthcare District citizens did vote for Board candidates whose campaigns were supported by local Unions, and THANK GOD FOR THAT, because those newly elected Directors have saved lives! They are heroes in this community, and will be as long as they are with us.
Keeping the hospital open is well worth the millions of dollars the District has spent on legal bills. The mission and purpose of the Eden Township Healthcare District is to work to improve the health of their communities. In order to fulfill that, wasn't the District Board duty bound to spend money to keep its Hospitals open? Frivolous lawsuits are tossed out by judges, and they are definitely not recieved by appeal courts.
If Sutter becomes successful in taking away the only 24-hour Emergency Room in San Leandro which serves over 27,000 patients a year, where will they go? How many people will die needlessly in the name of enriching Sutter Health executives?
For our uncaring, myopic commenters, I'll speak to what you seem to prioritize, your self-interests. When you or a family member need to go to a local Emergency Room or need to be admitted, how much longer will your wait be if SLH is closed? Will your child suffer unneccesary pain? Will your spouse or parent die?
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Both sutter and the ethd have crapped on themselves. There are no winners here. The district has wasted millions in a frivilous law suit on behalf of unions that hate sutter.
Sutter is a money making machine for the executives that run them. The only losers here is us. We've been caught in the middle of politicans who are bought by unions. Executive looking forward to their retirement and unions lusting after more dues and members.
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that's fine but why does that mean san Leandro can't exist. Why can't people choose between SLH and Eden. Havibg a choice is better for tge consumer. You'll get a more completive price tag on procedures while enjoying the option to choose. Closing SLH just builds stutters slouching monopoly even bigger. Sutter is the slug of northern California dragging it's trail of slime across the bay area.
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Healthcare is big business. Figure it out. The insured at Eden and the rest at highland.
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You've got it wrong!! Sutter builds hospitals with private rooms that only insured customers can use. If you notice I said customer and not patient. That is what sutter refers to patients now. I'm not making that up. if you happen to need a procedure to save your life, you better hope you have insurance if you want to be a customer at the new Eden.
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The great unions representing the employees of SLH used those same employees in their fight with sutter. It's disgusting how the CNA placed Carole Rogers in the chair's seat, then she used the districts money to support a friviolous lawsuit aganist sutter. That money could have been used to provide healthcare for the poor (the true 99%).
Sutter should not settle – they should clean out the district's bank account and give it to organizations in our community who provide healtcare for the poor.
And those incompetent board members should be removed from the ETHD. And returned to the holes they crept out of.
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Sanctimonious crap: you obviously did not attend the public hearing last night to hear from Alex Briscoe, Alameda County Health Director. He gave an excellent PowerPoint presentation showing the serious impact of losing an Emergency Dept. In our County. Alameda County has the lowest number of Emergency Room beds per capita in the nation. His presentation is on the district web site home page: http://www.ethd.org
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Does anyone appreciate San Leandro Hospital employees who were herded in for regular management “informational” sessions for the last 3 years- to tell all that they were out of a job in 30 days? But they hung in there. That Hospital family is a tight one. They all believe in their mission to save lives. The esprit de corps in that hospital is unbelievable. It is not about jobs. Talented experienced professionals are in demand and they can get hired anywhere. Remember we have a nurses shortage? Papa John can get hired as a pharmacy tech. at any hospital in the bay area, he is just trying to hold his family together.
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No one is happy when a hospital closes. Your fear john is the loss of your job. I see you crying about the loss of services. You are so fake it's sickening to many of us.
We are going to loss our jobs as well. WE'll survive and our community and people will receive healthcare at Eden, St. Rose or Kaiser.
So cut the santamonious crap.
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Steve: there is no such thing as a “limited scale” ER. Either you are a full service hospital or you are not. That means all departments open. You have to have emergency surgery, recovery, ICU, CCU, lab, radiology -with doctors, nurses and techs – and all of the support staff including housekeeping and food service. So the County is going to put all of the San Leandro Hospital staff including doctors on their payroll? Overnight?
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The shame will come when people are unable to get the medical attention they need because of the people like the one above who must not live anywhere near the hospital and who for some unkown reason is happy that the hospital may close. I think the ETHD Board did all of the right things to keep the hospital open, they know there is no price one can put on someones life, and to lose an ER and have someone lose valuable time going to an ER that could be to many valuable minutes away when having a stroke or a heart attack when every minute counts, and if this person above had been to last nights presentation, they would have heard that the possibility of going to another ER could be fruitless, because we do not have enough ER depts even now as stated by an ER nurse from Highland Hospital who stated they had to divert patients and to think that Sutters new Eden Hospital would be able to handle these patients is just plain wrong, so the only thing these patients could do is go farther and farther away to another ER and hope they get there in time. The solution is quite simple keep San Leandro Hospital and their excellent ER open, your life could depend on it and so could mine again. John Kalafatich ( PAPA JOHN )
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It's over people. It's been over for months.
The ETHD has wasted millions that could have been spent on healthcare for the poor. And all the time they and others were telling us they were trying to save the ER at SLH.
Shame.
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I don't know what Gregory told you. He's a good guy. You can listen to some of what I attribute to him on audio on the city's web site. He is not the source of any details, I can assure everybody.
I didn't hack any emails. Those were requested by CNA and provided to me and whomever wanted them, if that's what you're talking about. No wikileaks here.
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Sounds like ex-mayor Tony Santos at the wheel with his usual spurious message to give up and close the hospital. What is his tie with Sutter?
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This is all rumors. Tavares, you are writing a tabloid. Have you hacked into voicemails lately? Councilman Michael Gregory told me tonight that none of this is true.
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It is not my sense that the District board has abandoned the idea of saving the hospital nor that it is over, but it's close.
The wild card has always been how much bad press will Sutter put up with? The facts show that their taste for negative press has a very low threshold and I think the District and city have dropped the ball in rallying a very willing group to raise hell. They have also failed to present a riveting narrative.
The San Leandro Hospital story is about two plays away from calling for a hail Mary pass downfield.
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As a san Leandro resident I'd like to thank all the politicians, healthcare workers and alameda county citizens that rallied to save our hospital. It's really sad that it was too late. it's a sign of the times though. Corporations use laws made to protect us, to control what happens to our cities and communities.
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alameda healthcare Board is so enthused, jumping for joy that they're getting a great building for almost free to run their rehab they literally do not give a fuck. EBcitizen posted private emails between sutter and alameda healthcare board about a year ago that CNA summoned from tge county. the alameda healthcare board wants SLH closed more than sutter. Infact they are helping push this forward with sutter.
The worst part is that when some of the board of supervisors were being very vocal as well as writing letters to sutter about how they will not support the closure, the healthcare board was sending these emails to sutter about how they wished the Eden township would cOme to their senses so sutter could hurry up and shut it down.
FUCK SUTTER HEALTH.
FUCK ALAMEDA COUNTY.
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Where was Sutter Health at this meeting? Is this corporation so busy counting their money that they can't attend? Such arrogance cannot be ignored.
It's time for our elected officials to start representing the people. Remember us ETHD and Alameda County elected officials?
Mark Phillips, Castro Valley
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sooo the township threw us under the bus to save their own ass. Sounds like they're no better than sutter.
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It sounds like a win for Sutter. Finally the ETHD rolls over.
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