[Sustain] Fwd: Call City Hall To Support Nurses & Stop Hospital Closing!

[Eric Brooks]

Call City Hall To Support Nurses & Stop Hospital Closing!

Hi all,

San Francisco nurses have just started a two day strike against Sutter 
Health Corporation in order to demand better treatment of patients, 
better work conditions, and to stop Sutter from shutting down St. Luke's 
Hospital (on the city's South side) which is vital to community and 
citywide health security.

You can help San Francisco nurses in this vital effort by taking a 
moment right now to call the Mayor and Board of Supervisors President 
Aaron Peskin with the following message:

"Please strongly support the nurses' strike and take immediate action to 
stop Sutter Health from closing St. Luke's Hospital."

Use the following numbers:

Mayor Newsom (Office of Neighborhood Services):
554-7111 (or call 311 and ask to leave a comment for the Mayor)

Supervisor Aaron Peskin:
554-7450

Background On The Strike (From the CNA/NNOC):

Sutter Health has a management contract to run St. Luke's.  Sutter is a "not for profit" corporation that owns or manages 13 hospitals in Northern California.  The strike is being led by nurses who have been without a contract since 5/07.  The nurses of CPMC and St. Luke's are part of CNA/NNOC which represents over 5000 RN's in Northern California as their union.  The issues at the bargaining table are:

1) Safe-staffing for RN's who are forced to skip lunches and breaks because Sutter will not hire enough RN's to meet basic staffing ratios now in place.
2) A change in health care benefits and a severe reduction in pension plans for nurses retiring after 20 years.
3) The reported Sutter master plan to close three community hospitals as acute care facilities.  These are:

- St. Luke's in SF
- Sutter Santa Rosa
- Sutter San Leandro(Old doctor's hospital)

These hospitals draw their reimbursement largely from state or federal programs for low income patients like MediCal.  This is likely why Sutter has decided to close them and open, in their master plan for the next two years, a larger cardiac hospital in Burlingame, in order to seek reimbursement from more lucrative forms of health insurance.  There are rumors of a merger with San Jose Medical Group which almost destroyed Good Samaritan in San Jose a few years back.  The community didn't let that happen.

All CNA/NNOC nurses in the other facilities are walking out Thursday in solidarity with the nurses who will see their hospital close.
 
If St. Luke's closes, the public sector cannot absorb the patients who will flow to the next closest hospital, which is not CPMC in the Fillmore District, but SF General Hospital.  Sutter is making vague promises of shifting hundreds of patient's to their CPMC campus, and saying that they will up-grade the old Jack Tar hotel on Van Ness, to make it a hospital.  However traffic on Van Ness at rush hour would make ambulance access to this proposed facility extremely problematic.

-end-


Thanks for taking action!

Eric Brooks
Campaign Coordinator
Our City

//This alert posted by:

Our City
1028-A Howard St.
San Francisco, CA  94103
415-756-8844

For more information about Our City campaigns go to:
http://www.our-city.org
info at our-city.org <mailto:info at our-city.org>
//

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