Was the Grand Jury Snookered?

The May 11 Interim Grand Jury Report trashing ACMC, the Board of Trustees, hospital workers and their unions contains so much bad information that it causes one to lose faith in the grand jury process! Were they misled by their informants? Their timing is also suspect ­ the report was issued earlier than usual, just as SEIU contract bargaining is scheduled to begin.

Throughout the report one sees reflected the views of Sheriff Charles Plummer contained in a series of letters he sent to the Board of Supervisors and the Grand Jury after attending ACMC Board of Trustee meetings the past 18 months. In these letters, now public information, Plummer complained that the unions are running the hospital and demanded that ACMC lay off 300 people. (Did we mention that the Jury Foreman used to work for Plummer?) Sure enough, the Grand Jury report parrots back that ³the unionsŠhave gained unprecedented control over hospital operations² and that ACMC needs to make cuts, including layoffs, or it ³will collapse, crushed by its debt.²

Pretty dramatic stuff ­ but none of it¹s true! If the unions control the hospital, how come members had to conduct widespread work actions last summer? If SEIU were in charge, would so many temporary nurses be hired? And what is this hysteria about a ³dire financial crisis²? Cambio is projecting no deficit for this fiscal year, and they have yet to unveil their budget for next fiscal year, altho¹ early reports are that ACMC will actually take in more than it pays out for a change!

One of the most flagrant falsehoods is that ³on any given day as many as 25% of ACMC employees are not at work because of an on-the-job injury orŠlong-term disability.² This charge goes back ­ surprise, surprise! ­ to Plummer¹s attack last August at a joint meeting of the trustees and the Board of Supervisors, when he claimed that some 500 FTE (fulltime equivalent) positions were being paid but not working. The fact is that most of these absences are just ordinary vacation and paid holidays and earned sick leave ­ at the May 18, 2005 joint trustees/supes meeting, Supervisor Gail Steele got Cambio¹s Susan Crutchfield to admit that only 44 employees were out on worker¹s comp, that the 25% figure was an ³urban myth.² So why didn¹t Cambio execs correct Plummer¹s statement last August? Could it be because he recommended them for the consulting contract in the first place?

The factual errors begin with the first page: ³The Medical Center cannot begin to hire a senior management team until it hires a permanent chief executive officer.² Oops, what about all those recently filled senior level positions announced in ACMC¹s employee newsletter? These include: Chief information officer, chief medical officer, chief nurse executive, vice president for marketing and public relations, John George administrator, and controller.

One of the dumbest Grand Jury complaints is that the ³nurses¹ contract requires that patient wards be staffed.² Do they expect patient wards to be unstaffed? And they fail to grasp that staffing ratios are set by the state ­ don¹t they read the newspapers, about the governor being successfully sued, not to mention chased around the state, when he tried to reduce state nurse staffing ratios?

The Grand Jury misses its target yet again when it attacks the SEIU ACMC contracts, which it claims are ³far more generous than Alameda County.² They must have overlooked the fact that both groups of employees have the same health and pension benefits. ACMC workers do get more vacation, because they gave up some holidays. County workers have more holidays and less vacation. Where¹s the imbalance?

Somehow the Grand Jury also assumes that Measure A funds were expected to completely close the gap between costs and reimbursements for medical services. The Blue Ribbon Taskforce which wrote Measure A was always very clear that this influx of tax dollars would be a major but only partial solution to ACMC¹s longterm budget problems. The Grand Jury recommends that some Measure A funds be conserved for reserve funds, which would violate the promise made to the taxpayers that the additional sales tax revenues would provide medical services to the indigent and uninsured, not put into slush funds.

The Grand Jury interviewed only one labor representative, no doctors, and no non-management staff. They had lots of negative input from people like the Sheriff who don¹t work at ACMC. Shame on them for not doing a better job on behalf of county taxpayers!

SB 840 Clears the Senate!

Many support letters, endorsements, legislative hearings and lobbying in all its forms have resulted in Senator Sheila Kuehl¹s SB 840, the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, passing on the Senate floor in early June. It is now headed for the Assembly, where a new round of letters and lobbying is required to get this policy bill passed. In January 2006, funding mechanisms for the bill will be introduced, which require yet more hearings. The East Bay SB 840 Coalition is up to the task, organizing another round of local assembly district office meetings, setting up speakers training, printing bumper stickers and leaflets, and continuing to seek endorsements from local organizations. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors has endorsed SB 840, as has the SEIU State Council, representing all SEIU locals in California. If you need info on how to get your group to endorse, please contact a coalition member, such as Vote Health. If you would like a speaker at your event, please call us!

Bumper stickers and signs cost money! Please send your non-tax-deductible donations to Vote Health, P.O. Box 18922, Oakland 94619. The Vote Health exec has agreed to match the first $500 in contributions!

Thanks to all of you who called, faxed and emailed the Board of Supervisors to oppose the appointment of Sheriff Plummer to the ACMC Board of Trustees! We verified the tip within hours and sprang into action, helped not only by our usual network but also our allies in the SB 840 coalition. While our efforts were successful on May 17, one has to wonder what the Board of Supervisors was thinking, after months of poisonous letters from the Sheriff attacking his would-be colleagues on the Board of Trustees. Ever gracious in defeat, Plummer demonstrated his diplomatic skills by insisting that the Three Stooges could do a better job of running the hospital than the trusteesŠsort of like sending John Bolton to the United Nations! Or Alameda County¹s version of the ³nuclear optionŠ²

Newsletter committee:
Kay Eisenhower, Jim Forsyth.
Our thanks to CA Nurses Association for their help in producing this newsletter.