The management of Sutter Health Care has broken its contract not only with its workers, but also with the LGBT community. Months ago, a federal mediator worked with hospital management and caregiver unions to find a negotiated standard of care for both sides to embrace. The caregivers, who are members of SEIU United Health Care Workers-West (UHW), accepted the evenhanded compromise, and, initially, Sutter CPMC officials also accepted it. Later, however, they reneged. And, last month, health caregivers at all three Sutter California Pacific Medical Centers were forced to strike.
Many in the LGBT community, in particular those in the Castro, depend on Davies Medical Center at Duboce and Noe for our health care. By refusing to compromise, Davies Medical Center and the other CPMC hospitals have broken their social contract with our community.
I support the federal mediator's compromise to end the strike and urge Sutter CMPC to do the same. Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare West, Tenet, and many other hospitals across California have established standards similar to those proposed by the mediator. If other hospitals can support these industry standards, why can't Sutter CPMC? Shouldn't Sutter be putting their patients, their workers, and their community ahead of their profits – particularly when you consider Sutter's nonprofit status?
Why did UHW caregivers decide to go on strike? Two reasons. First, UHW is negotiating for safe staffing levels and for a fund for training and upgrading workers' skills. Like the nurses who are fighting Governor Schwarzenegger for safe staffing levels for patients, there is a need for safe staffing levels for other caregivers. For example, at Kaiser a certified nursing assistant will likely have about four to five patients to care for at a time, but at CPMC it could be anywhere from 9 to 18 patients – a clear case of understaffing.
Second, UHW went on strike because CPMC refused to create a training and upgrade fund. Other hospitals have agreed to pay half the costs and the union agreed to pay the other half so that caregivers can stay on top of their training needs and advance into higher positions of care. Other hospitals have recognized the mutual benefit for the hospital, the patients, and the community. Sutter, however, makes empty statements full of excuses rather than backing this incredibly reasonable partnership.
Earlier this year, I authored a resolution at the state Democratic Party Convention directed at Sutter to make it more responsive to community needs. The state party decided that holding Sutter accountable was one of the top 10 priorities of the state Democratic Party and passed the resolution. Why? Because Sutter profoundly influences the standards and prices of the health care industry and its price-gouging means that the entire state's health care system is damaged. Sutter, the Wal-Mart of the health care industry, has a record of inflating prices, overcharging the uninsured, putting profits first, not providing charity care to the uninsured while getting huge tax breaks as a nonprofit, and refusing to adopt community standards to name just a few transgressions.
Sutter Health earned more than a quarter billion dollars in profits during 2002, with its 26 hospitals earning an average profit margin of nearly 10 percent. Even as profits have grown over the last few years, precious resources have been misdirected toward administrative expenses and exorbitant executive salaries.
I know Sutter can do better. Sutter is a nonprofit that has access to tax free bonds from government agencies, is exempt from property and income taxes, and has the right of use to tax deductible donations. Sutter could be the model for the health care industry. Sutter could put patients first, not profits. Sutter could try to help hold prices down, not inflate them. Sutter could provide charity care to the uninsured instead of aggressively collecting debts from the impoverished, penalizing those that are the least able to pay their bills.
If Sutter won't do better, then we, the community, must demand better. There is a picket line at Davies Medical Center. Every day people, members of the community, have joined the picket lines in order to hold Davies Medical Center, a Sutter affiliate, accountable.
Join us in our demand for affordable healthcare from those who are charged with providing it. Call CPMC CEO Jack Bailey at (415) 600-6000. Ask him to say yes to the federal mediator's compromise.
Robert Haaland is a queer activist and labor organizer. Read his blog at www.leftinsf.com.