Blue ribbon panel to focus on initiative
Committee seeks financial answers to crisis at Alameda County-run hospitals and clinics
By Rebecca Vesely, STAFF WRITER, Oakland Tribune
Sunday, October 19, 2003

More than two months after announcing the formation of a "blue-ribbon" committee to develop a long-term fiscal solution for the troubled Alameda County-run hospitals and clinics, the county Board of Supervisors is just beginning to outline the committee's scope.

In a letter sent to board president Gail Steele on Wednesday, state Assemblymembers Wilma Chan, Loni Hancock and Ellen Corbett -- along with state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, -- expressed concern over the future of the hospitals and urged the board to move forward with the blue ribbon committee.

"Like we said in the letter, they need to take a look at how they can generate revenues and efficiencies -- it's going to be a short timeframe," Hancock said. "They're working under very difficult conditions."

Rachel Richman, Chan's chief of staff, said the letter was meant as a show of support.

"It's important that people work together to start addressing these problems," she said.

The county medical center includes Highland and Fairmont hospitals, along with John George Psychiatric Pavilion and three outpatient clinics.

The facilities -- overseen by a board of trustees appointed by the county supervisors -- have been wracked with a deficit of about $51 million and turnover among top administrators and trustees.

"We're almost overwhelmed, so we want to go step by step," said Supervisor Steele.

At a meeting Tuesday night in Hayward, stakeholders -- including Steele, Supervisor Nate Miley, who is leading the panel, and labor groups, patient advocates and county health directors -- met to discuss priorities for the blue ribbon committee.

Over the next month, the committee will focus on developing language for a ballot initiative to present to voters in March 2004, in the form of a sales or parcel tax, to bail out the county hospitals and clinics.

Miley and his staff have been meeting with patient advocates, physicians and labor to craft the initiative over the past several months.

In April, Miley hired policital consultant Larry Tramutola to begin researching community support for the initiative.

To get the measure on the March ballot, the supervisors must approve the initiative language by no later than mid-November -- an admittedly tight timeline.

"Whether it can be pulled off, I don't know," Steele said.

SEIU Local 250, representing health care workers, put forth a six-page plan on the scope for the blue-ribbon panel -- supported by patient advocate groups like Vote Health and the Berkeley Gray Panthers.

The plan included hiring a contract director to facilitate the committee, and then proceed with a medical center budget revision, designing a ballot initiative, restructuring operations and improving patient care and satisfaction within a well-defined scope of operations, all before the end of the year.

This plan was rejected in the group's first meeting Tuesday, though Steele said many involved are interested in hiring a consultant who would spearhead the committee.

Steele said she would likely interview three candidates shortly, and that the fee would come out of her account. Supervisors can spend just under $25,000 to hire consultants out of their office spending budgets.

The only person under consideration at the moment for the difficult task is Glen Rosselli, a longtime Oakland resident who most recently served as deputy chief of staff to Gov. Gray Davis and undersecretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency.

Rosselli has long been a central figure in health care crisis-solving. He negotiated the $2 billion federal bailout of Los Angeles' public hospital system in the mid-1990s. He also founded the Medi-Cal Policy Institute, a research division of the California HealthCare Foundation in Oakland.

Labor groups issued a scathing one-page critique of the blue ribbon panel after the first meeting, calling it a meeting "convened with little notice," and "poorly planned."

Paul Kumar, political director for Local 250, said that while it is critical to craft an appropriate ballot initiative as quickly as possible, it's important to look at it through the lens of services patients need.

"It's important when we're faced every week with new rounds of proposals for cuts that we stop and understand what services must be maintained and why and what's manageable," Kumar said.

Contact Rebecca Vesely at rvesely@angnewspapers.com.