Fix California Nursing Homes Now!

They seek to improve basic standards for nursing homes, standards to include adequate staffing, good careers, a voice for care givers, and a change in the funding system so that nursing home owners will have an incentive to change.
 
The pledge states that "We support decent nursing home care and will urge Governor Davis and State Legislators to set adequate staffing standards, to establish a funding system that ensures safe care and decent working conditions, and to hold nursing home owners accountable for the safety and quality of life of their residents."
 
If you would like more information about this campaign, please call Sandra Weese at Local 250, telephone 510-251-1250.

Don't close Fairmont neuro-respiratory unit!

Family members and friends of residents at the Fairmont Campus of the Alameda County Medical Center gathered late last month for a rally and press conference to block plans by the Medical Center to transfer 16 neuro-respiratory patients to other facilities.
 
The unit is faced with the downgrading of its license by the Department of Health Services to a skilled nursing facility from its previous acute care status. Because the downgrade will mean less money, the Medical Center is attempting to close the unit.
 
This is not the first facility to fall victim to insufficient health care cost reimbursement. Last year, patients at Doctor's Hospital in Pinole faced similar circumstances and announced plans to close its Subacute and TCU units. Families scrambled to secure local placement for their loved ones. According to a Contra Costa Times article, the mother of one patient was informed that alternative placement for her son was nearly 90 miles away from her home.
 
The families of the 16 neuro-respiratory patients at Fairmont fear possible long distances to visit their relatives at new facilities. They are also concerned about risks associated with moving ventilator patients. There were reports of cardiac arrests and a death attributed to such a relocation effort in the past.
 
With a projected deficit of $3 to 7 million dollars for the Medical Center in 2002, healthcare advocates are concerned that the proposed transfer of the 16 neuro-respiratory patients from Fairmont to other facilities is only one item in a long list of budget-driven actions. We call upon the County Board of Supervisors to substantially increase monetary support for the Medical Center.

To write a letter to the ACMC Trustees, click here, and also to the County Board of Supervisors, click here.

Vote Health is alive and well

We've had many requests for information as to the state of Vote Health's health after the changes we went through in January. Many wondered whether the organization still continues to advocate for improved health care for Alameda County and universal health care for the state and nation.
 
Here's the scoop: There is one, strong Vote Health, and we are doing what we've done since 1984. The 50 people who attended the February meeting elected a larger board than ever before:

Nancy M. Friedman, Chair, Fred Zierten, Treasurer, and Tory Becker, Sue Bergman, Deborah Campbell, Dorothy Graham, Julie Hawthorne, Joe Keffer, Kevin Reilly, Tim Saunders and Margot Smith.

• As a result of work by our Bylaws Committee, bylaws were adopted at our May 28 general meeting.
  
• We're working on establishing ourselves as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. Neighbor to Neighbor will continue as our fiscal sponsor until that is completed.
  
• The Single Payer Video Committee has eight members excited about producing an educational tool to help the public understand why single payer is only the way our country can address "the health care mess."
  Their next meeting is Thursday, May 31, 7 p.m. at 1300-A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. Call (510) 486-6010.
  
• Locally, we focus on strengthening the Alameda County Medical Center. We are also joining with local healthcare unions to save all the services that Fairmont Hospital provides.
  

California county safety nets face uncertain future

In California, county health care systems are the safety net for more than seven million uninsured. Now they face troubled times as hospitals from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Alameda County to Merced face deficits, mergers and closings.
 
The federal Balanced Budget Act of 1997 cut Medicare payments to hospitals and doctors as the health care industry clamped down on costs. Now, countless lives hang in the balance as George Bush moves to pass Medicare "reform" and massive tax relief for the wealthy at the expense of social programs.
 
Los Angeles County's 13-hospital trauma network has received $2 billion in federal bailouts since 1995. LA faces a $506-million deficit in the next five years.
 
The problems are not confined to big cities like Los Angeles. Many rural counties have already closed their public hospitals. Merced County recently voted to lease its facilities to Catholic Health Care West, a private hospital chain that will have a monopoly on care in the County.
 
Locally, the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that physicians and nurses at San Francisco General fear that a limit has been reached: "We face... a typically busy ICU time without the necessary resources to handle the expected increase in patients."
 
A community/labor coalition has formed in San Francisco to fight the cuts. Vote Health is working to link up with statewide activists concerning this crucial battle in the fight for universal health care.

A Jewel in History screened

On March 26, 2001, Vote Health and the California Nurses Association teamed up to present A Jewel in History, a thought-provoking video about the history of Black hospitals. It told the story of the Homer G. Phillips Hospital for the Colored in St. Louis, Missouri. An audience of thirty people was fascinated by this Mukulla J. Godwin production.

HCA campaigns to impact universal health care study

Vote Health, and all Health Care for All-California affiliates, are gathering endorsements from organizations throughout the state that will soon be delivered to the Assembly and Senate budget subcommittees for health. If you belong to an organization that can give an endorsement for this campaign, please contact Dan Hodges at (510) 848-5230 and he will mail you a form.
 
The goal of the campaign is to have the state Health and Human Services Agency (HHS) agree to conduct a universal health care study according to the principles issued in report by a panel of national health care experts to the legislature last year. If HHS makes this commitment, the budget subcommittees will release a $1.2 million federal grant to finance the study.
 
Last year HCA campaigns were successful in getting HHS to apply for the grant as well as to have Congress include the money for the grant in the federal budget. By following the panel's recommendations, HHS will have to implement the universal health care study with procedures that do not discriminate against single payer.

Physicians address Congress for a single payer health care system

On May 1, nearly 20 prominent physicians representing multiple professional organizations testified before Congress on the need for comprehensive reform to our ailing health care system. The hearing, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, was called to address the nation's health care crisis in which over 42 million Americans have no health insurance, and our overall health indicators rank us 37 in the world, far below all of the developed nations.

The focus of the testimony was on the failure of our market-based medicine and profit-driven health care system to control costs and provide comprehensive, quality, accessible, and universal coverage for our population. The presenting group stressed that piecemeal reform does not adequately address the systemic problems of our current system, and that the only solution is fundamental reform in the form of a national, single payer health plan premised on four basic principles:

1. Access to comprehensive health care is a human right;
   


2. The right to choose and change one's physician is fundamental to patient autonomy;
   


3. Pursuit of corporate profit and personal fortune have no place in care giving and they create enormous waste; and,
   


4. In a democracy, the public should set overall policies.

Each such effort moves the issue of our failing health care system more prominently into the public spotlight and highlights the strengths and rationality of a single payer system. For a copy of the testimony go to www.pnhp.org or call (312) 554-0382.