Bay Area fights hospital closing

By Herb Kaye

SAN FRANCISCO - Facing the threat of a July 23 decision by management to close 113-year-old Mt. Zion Hospital in the Western Addition area of the city, 300 hospital workers and community residents marched around the hospital and then several blocks to a community meeting where they confronted top executives of the privately-controlled hospital.

Mt. Zion and the University of San Francisco hospitals, which were publicly owned and part of the University of California, both merged with Stanford and Packard hospitals of Palo Alto two years ago. All four have since been reporting heavy operating losses projected to be $60 million for fiscal year 1999.

Despite demands from hospital unions, community leaders and elected officials that they open their books to an audit, which might help to explain the losses, hospital management has refused to comply. Their refusal has brought a threat of criminal charges from the California State Auditor.

Meanwhile, management has begun to implement plans to eliminate 2,000 of the 12,500 jobs at the system, with 600 already laid off and another 100 to go in the first phase by Aug. 31. It has also proposed to eliminate emergency services which have handled 15,000 visits in the past year, as well as the surgery department, and to reduce in-patient service from 100 beds to 44 at Mt. Zion.

These cuts were attacked as "devastating" by both community residents and hospital workers at the community meeting. Dr. Jeffrey Aron, a physician at Mt. Zion for 32 years, said, "The main problem is the American health-care system. What we are faced with today is what corporate America has done to people. They don't care if people die."

Laura Hodgkins, a nurse at Mt. Zion's cancer division, decried the elimination of hospital services. "You can't treat cancer or help dialysis patients with reduced services. If complications develop, they need immediate attention - sending them to some other hospital means that people will die."

She was followed by Leila Caffrey, representing the St. Domenick Catholic Church Social Justice Committee, who said, "These people who work in the hospital know what is needed. Our community needs to see Mt. Zion stay open."

At the hospital rally a Russian war veteran with a chest full of Soviet medals, speaking in his native language with the aid of a translator, called for keeping the hospital open as vital to the survival of the 1,700 Russian émigrés who live in the community.

Corey Menotti, president of Local 829 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents the 2,000 hospital workers at Mt. Zion, led the march around the hospital and chaired the rally. "We've got to keep marching, writing letters, and making phone calls to our elected officials, the University of California Board of Regents and CEO Philip Van Etten that Mt. Zion must stay open and that an independent audit of the books must be made," said Menotti.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano and member Sue Bierman were at the rally, and the city's Board of Rabbis sent a message urging that Mt. Zion be kept open.