Sutter Coast Interim CEO presents hospital update to County Supervisors
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Following today's Board of
Supervisors meeting, I wrote the following letter to hospital
employees, volunteers, and physicians. Please contact me with any
questions or comments, as we work to preserve local ownership, and
prevent downsizing, of the only acute care hospital in our region. We
also need volunteers to help distribute petitions and literature, and
gather email addresses of interested residents. Your email address is
stored on my home computer and is not released to anyone. Any
communication from me will come through Constant Contact, with no
attachments, and is virus free. Please contact me at drgjduncan@yahoo.com or stop by my office on 1200 Marshall St. if you would like to help.
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Definition of terms for newcomers:
"Regionalization":
Sutter Health's system wide take over of once independently owned
community hospitals. The Sutter Coast Board deliberately excluded the
public from their vote to Regionalize our local hospital in 2011.
"Critical
Access": A federal program initially designed to support tiny
hospitals by paying higher amounts for the treatment of Medicare
patients. Sutter Health is now considering closing half of our hospital
beds to "fit" the program, which would result in hundreds of patients
requiring air ambulance transfers to distant hospitals every year.
How
are these programs related? If we Regionalize, the decision to
implement Critical Access, and every other decision affecting the future
of our hospital, will be made by a 32 member Board, appointed by Sutter
Health, which meets in San Francisco.
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The
physicians of Sutter Coast Hospital are overwhelmingly opposed to
hospital downsizing and to the transfer of ownership to Sutter Health.
Our goal is to expand services where feasible. We want the hospital to
be open when you need it.
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Open letter to hospital employees, volunteers, and physicians:
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Dear Colleagues:
I appreciate
the input which Linda Horn and a group of hospital employees provided to
the Board of Supervisors today. Everyone expressed the common goal of a
strong local hospital. I write with suggestions on how we may secure
that goal.
The Medical
Staff has already passed several resolutions opposing Regionalization
and Critical Access Hospital (CAH) designation for Sutter Coast
Hospital. In fact, five months ago, at the request of several
physicians, Dr. John Tynes contacted Sutter West Bay Region President
Mike Cohill seeking just those two reassurances--that we don't transfer
hospital ownership to Sutter Health or move to downsize Sutter Coast to a
Critical Access facility. Mr. Cohill promised to pass our request on
to Sutter Health CEO Pat Fry. To date, we have received no reply from
Mr. Cohill or Mr. Fry.
Today, Linda
Horn told the Supervisors that "Critical Access is not being discussed."
In fact, Sutter Health called a special meeting of the Sutter Coast
Board earlier this year to discuss Critical Access. Sutter Lakeside
executives gave a presentation on Critical Access, including a three
step process by which CAH designation could be implemented here. We are
now halfway through the second step in that process. A 2012 study on
Critical Access (funded by Sutter Health) produced the following
recommendation to Sutter Health (quoting directly from the report): "Based on the information presented above, we believe that the Hospital should pursue the CAH program."
The Camden
Group, which Sutter is now paying to perform a strategic options study
for the hospital, has been directed by Sutter to include
Critical Access designation as one of the options for Sutter Coast. The
Camden Group has longstanding and ongoing business relationships with
both Sutter Health and Sutter CEO Pat Fry. Sutter Health wrote
the study proposal and conducted private conference calls with their
prescreened consultants. Hospital Board Chair Ken Hall then single
handedly appointed three community members to select the final
consultant. Today, Ms. Horn mentioned that a group of 15-18 community
members would be involved in the study going forward. This was news to
me-no such information was ever presented or discussed in the hospital
Board room.
Ms. Horn also
stated today that Regionalization is indefinitely postponed. Please
note the following: if Sutter would release the minutes of the 3/7/13
Board meeting, you would read that Regionalization is only being
"temporarily set aside", while "the process remains in place."
Regionalization and Critical Access were put on hold by the hospital
Board only after Superior Court Judge Leonard LaCasse issued an
Injunction blocking both programs. Sutter Health attorneys are
currently trying to lower the Injunction.
It
is my understanding that outside funding is still available for the
hospital options study--why not start the process over, with outside
funding and community input from the beginning, using a company without
longstanding ties to Sutter Health? We all agree we need a study-let's
make it a valid one.
Our concerns
with Critical Access are twofold. First, the program would eliminate
50% of our hospital beds, necessitating hundreds of emergency patient
transfers every year to distant hospitals, at the patients' risk and
expense, and without their family or local doctor at the receiving
hospital. Second, Critical Access would precipitate significant layoffs
at Sutter Coast.
At Sutter
Lakeside, which is not as busy or as remote as Sutter Coast, the
implementation of Critical Access was followed by massive job losses,
and closure of two outpatient clinics. According to a March 2008 press
release from Sutter Lakeside, Critical Access designation would
"preserve the over 600 high quality jobs SLH provides in our community,"
adding that "SLH will be able to invest more in our community and
expand our services--not cut them." The reality at Sutter Lakeside has
been quite different. The "over 600 high quality jobs" have been
reduced to approximately 270, including a 10% across the board cut in
March 2012. SLH also closed two outpatient clinics following Critical
Access designation.
The concern
with Regionalization, which dissolves our local hospital Board and
transfers ownership and governance of our locally owned hospital to a
Sutter appointed Board in San Francisco, is that we lose control of all
decision making, including the decision to implement Critical Access,
and the decision to outsource jobs out of the community as part of
Sutter Health's "Shared Services" program. Regional President
Mike Cohill told us during a recorded meeting last August that under the
"Shared Services" program, only employees who touch patients can be
assured their jobs will stay local.
An ongoing
frustration among the community is Sutter Health's refusal to release
the financial data for the hospital or meeting minutes from the Board of
Directors. We hope Sutter will honor the Healthcare District's
subpoena for the financial data (which Sutter attorneys have to date
ignored), and will respect Supervisor Finigan's request today that the
Sutter Coast Board release their meeting minutes. An open process would do wonders to resolve this conflict.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. It is only through open communication that we will resolve this issue to the benefit of the residents and visitors of our two communities, and the many talented and dedicated hospital employees and auxiliary members whom I have had the privilege of working with at Sutter Coast Hospital for the past 21 years.
Sincerely,
Greg Duncan
Gregory J. Duncan, M.D.
Chief of Staff
Sutter Coast Hospital
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