County workers protest job cuts
Despite moving finances from red to black, medical center plans to eliminate 300 positions
By Karen Holzmeister, STAFF WRITER, Daily Review
Article Last Updated: Friday, June 25, 2004 - 3:46:00 AM PST

HAYWARD -- Alameda County employees protested the upcoming elimination of 300 medical center workers on Thursday and urged county supervisors to intervene in the proposed layoffs.

About 55 county workers chanted and marched in the noon sunshine outside the Eden Multiservice Center at Winton Avenue and Amador Street, which houses the Winton Wellness Center, a clinic.

Similar lunchtime rallies were held at other county medical facilities in San Leandro, Newark and Oakland.

Officials at the Alameda County Medical Center are expecting a net income of nearly $2.4 million next fiscal year -- a vast improvement over the expected loss of $61.7 million this year, according to a draft budget proposal released Thursday.

The dramatic shift from red to black is thanks mostly to a half-cent sales tax voters approved in March that will provide an estimated $69 million next year to the medical center. The tax, dubbed Measure A, kicks in July 1 and sunsets in 15 years.

The proposed budget also includes savings of $12 million in salaries and benefits due to imminent layoffs.

Lisa Mills, a licensed vocational nurse at the wellness center, said she is one of 13 medical employees at the Hayward location who faces unemployment. "Cuts to health care can kill," read a purple-and-yellow sign she carried.

"I care for patients," including providing admitting and discharge information, Mills explained.

What, she asked, will patients do without enough trained medical staff to help them?

Like Mills, among those being cut are 49 licensed vocational nurses, 39 registered nurses, 56 nursing assistants and 69 clerks, according to labor organizers.

"We cannot provide services to patients with these cuts," said Kuwaze Imara, a registered nurse at Highland Hospital.

Workers expressed concerns about understaffing at the new critical care and clinics building at Highland, which opened May 31 and houses the emergency department and trauma center. The new ER is three times larger than the old one.

Protesters want county supervisors to intervene and prevent Cambio, a consulting firm hired to address the budget shortfall, and medical center trustees from making such drastic cuts. The trustees hired Cambio Health Solutions, a turnaround firm, in January on a $3.2 million 18-month contract to rein in the medical center's budget deficit, then projected for the current fiscal year at $71 million.

John Vellardita, the Service Employees International Union coordinator of the "Save the Alameda County Medical Center" campaign, said workers feel betrayed because they got out the vote for Measure A.

Measure A, approved by county voters in March, will add a half-cent to the county sales tax for 15 years. The tax will raise about $65 million a year for the medical center.

"We're not saying we don't need improvements at the medical center, but 71 percent of voters supported the medical center and there should be a high level of scrutiny," said Robert Phillips, coordinator for CURe ACMC, or Citizens United for a Responsible Alameda County Medical Center, which organized the protests.

Phillips also is a former medical center trustee who resigned last fall along with four others amid disputes with the county Board of Supervisors over the center's future.

Officials at the medical center said that Measure A funds alone would not be enough to correctly staff the organization.

County Supervisor Gail Steele, when contacted by phone while the rally was under way, said, "I understand their frustration. We need to get the facts correct, too. The tax won't start being collected until July 1, and it will be much later in the year before the county gets any money. There also will be an oversight committee to make sure the Measure A money goes into (medical center) services."

The medical center is projecting losses from state and federal sources of more than $10 million next fiscal year, as well as increases in workers' compensation and inflation, according to the budget proposal.

However, medical center officials are projecting increased patient revenue of $12 million, or 10 percent, due to increased volume, a rate increase and signing up more patients for state-funded insurance programs.

The budget proposal also includes $500,000 for a marketing budget to promote the medical center's services. The full board of trustees is expected to vote on the budget proposal Monday.

The battle over layoffs is expected to continue in the coming weeks.

Kay Eisenhower of Vote Health, a consumer group, said,"We haven't gotten any analysis of what the impact would be on patient care."

Staff writer Rebecca Vesely contributed to this story.

Contact Karen Holzmeister at (510) 293-2478 or kholzmeister@angnewspapers.com.