Anger as hospital turns over reins
By Guy Ashley, CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Posted on Fri, May. 07, 2004

OAKLAND -Trustees of the Alameda County Medical Center faced blistering criticism Thursday night as they approved a plan to replace top administrators with a team of outside consultants.

The decision to turn over the reins of the medical center's operation to Tennessee-based Cambio Health Solutions came just two weeks after trustees approved a cost-cutting plan that includes the elimination of 340 full-time employees at the medical center.

The management overhaul will see the medical center's top four administrators replaced by executives chosen by Cambio, the Tennessee-based consulting firm that has been advising the center for the past three months on strategies to eliminate a deficit projected at $73 million.

The plan drew condemnation by most of the 200 people who attended a meeting Thursday night at Highland Hospital because it would increase by about $17,000 a month the costs currently paid to the center's administrative team.

These costs would come in addition to the $182,000 in monthly fees Cambio is currently charging the medical center to guide it through a downsizing process intended to cut costs.

Judy Goff, secretary-treasurer of the Central Labor Council of Alameda County, said the plan left a bitter taste coming on the heels of news that nearly a quarter of the center's employees would lose their jobs.

Goff and other critics said it also signaled a betrayal of Alameda County voters, who voted in March for a half-cent sales tax to bolster public health care programs, especially the medical center network.

"Much of the cost savings of the layoffs will now go to pay Cambio additional fees, rather than providing better health care to the community," said Sue Berkman, a nurse at Eastmont Wellness Center in Oakland.

The plan calls for Cambio to take over day-to-day operations of the medical center while conducting a search for a new CEO and other administrators.

Cambio consultants would replace interim Chief Financial Officer Robert Strawn, Chief Operating Officer Judy Armstrong and Director of Human Resources Sandra Osibin. The medical center's interim CEO, Efton Hall Jr., was terminated earlier this month.

The medical center estimates it will save $14 million to $20 million through the staff reductions approved last month.

The medical center -- which includes Highland and Fairmont Hospital in San Leandro, as well as clinics in Oakland, Hayward and Newark -- is suffering because of a combination of federal and state funding cutbacks and growing numbers of uninsured patients.

It is estimated that Measure A, the half-cent sales tax approved in March, will generate as much as $70 million annually for medical center programs.