Officials seek to save Seton

Though the hospital is Daly City’s largest employer, its future has been called into question since its owner Verity Health, the nonprofit health care system that also operates the Seton Coastside facility in Moss Beach, announced in July it is experiencing financial challenges and may put the six hospitals it owns throughout the state up for sale. Verity Health’s Aug. 31 bankruptcy announcement highlighted the financial challenges facing the six hospitals but especially that of the Daly City facility, which Supervisor David Canepa said lost some $30 million last year.

In an effort to convene those concerned about the Daly City facility’s future, a town hall was held Wednesday, Oct. 10, in San Francisco’s United Irish Cultural Center, a gathering that filled the hall with residents from both counties as well as employees of the Seton facilities, said Debra Amour, a registered nurse in the hospital’s intensive care unit and member of the California Nurses Association.

Having worked at Seton Medical Center for more than 25 years, Amour said she is not alone in wondering what the hospital’s patients will do if it closes. As one of the only hospitals patients in the southern part of San Francisco or in the northern part of San Mateo County can quickly access in case of emergency, Seton Medical Center plays a vital role in instances of heart attacks, strokes and many other emergencies, she said, noting emergency rooms at other hospitals such as Kaiser Permanente’s South San Francisco Medical Center or Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame may be more than 30 minutes away for many patients who rely on Seton Medical Center.

Canepa, Daly City Mayor Juslyn Manalo, Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, and state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, attended the event and showed support for the hospital. After seeing that, Amour said she grew in her conviction that the community around the hospital must act collaboratively to spread the word about the hospital’s critical role and scope ways to keep it open.

“It is vital that our community comes together, both San Mateo County and San Francisco County, that we all come together politically,” she said. “If this hospital is not kept open, patients are going to die. That’s just the situation.”

Not just a San Mateo County issue

Canepa, who represents north county’s District 5 on the Board of Supervisors, said bringing health care professionals together with officials at multiple levels of government last week sparked an interest in forming a task force focused on finding a way to keep the hospital open. Though the composition of the task force remains to be seen, Canepa expected Seton Medical Center employees and community leaders to be included among those who would weigh in on the hospital’s future and was encouraged so many from both San Mateo and San Francisco counties showed interest in Wednesday’s event.

“We realize that this is just not only a San Mateo County issue,” he said. “We know that when we’re working together we can be stronger.”

The task force would be the next step officials will take after the Daly City Council passed a resolution supporting the facility’s land use and zoning for continued hospital use Sept. 24. Their action was followed a day later by San Mateo County supervisors’ approval of a resolution in support of the terms of agreement laid out by then-attorney general Kamala Harris in late 2015 when the New York hedge fund BlueMountain Capital struck a deal with the hospitals’ former operator Daughters of Charity to buy the six hospitals. Aimed at ensuring the safety-net hospitals continue offering services for at least 10 years, the transaction was considered by some to be the largest and most complex nonprofit hospital transaction in California’s history.

In addition to the two Seton facilities, Verity Health’s hospitals include O’Connor Hospital in San Jose and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, as well as St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood and St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles.

County’s $40 million, outreach

Though Santa Clara County officials put in a bid to purchase O’Connor Hospital and St. Louise Regional Hospital from Verity Health earlier this month, San Mateo County officials have not expressed the same enthusiasm for acquiring the Seton Coastside facility, a 116-bed skilled nursing facility, or the Daly City hospital, which provides 350 licensed beds and requires a seismic upgrade estimated by officials to cost some $250 million. Having contributed some $25 million for patient care and set aside $15 million toward a seismic upgrade project at the Seton Medical Center, county officials have already dedicated some $40 million to the facilities since they were acquired by Verity Health.

In an effort to find a buyer for the Daly City facility, Canepa’s office has reached out to several private and nonprofit health systems and organizations including Stanford Health Care, Tenet Healthcare, Sutter Health and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Canepa has previously expressed disappointment with Patrick Soon-Shiong, a surgeon, professor, scientist, entrepreneur, businessman and philanthropist who purchased the Los Angeles Times this year and stepped in as a majority stake owner in Integrity Healthcare, Verity Health’s management company, in 2017. Though Soon-Shiong’s involvement in the venture gave many renewed hope in the hospitals’ futures, doubts have surfaced as to whether he will be able to fulfill his responsibilities he committed to when he became a majority stake owner in the hospitals.

Conditions of approval

For Mullin, ensuring the conditions required by the Attorney General’s Office for the purchase of the hospital system has been a primary focus in the weeks following Verity Health’s bankruptcy announcement. Mullin and other state legislators who represent districts where Verity Health’s hospitals are located joined Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon in a Sept. 7 letter urging Attorney General Xavier Becerra to maintain the conditions of the approval, which include the Daly City facility operating as a full-service acute care hospital with emergency services and upholding all of its obligations to labor agreements.

“Most important is that all stakeholders need to ensure patients who access care at Seton continue to be provided health care services, and that employees are protected,” he said in a statement. “Patients and employees must come first.”

Anxiety

As the union representative for the National Union of Healthcare Workers at Seton Medical Center and Seton Coastside, John Avalos, a former San Francisco supervisor, has observed in the weeks since the facilities’ financial future was called into question a high level of anxiety among the certified nursing assistants, licensed vocational nurses, janitors, lab technicians and dietary workers he represents at both facilities. Avalos has spoken with employees who have worked at the facilities for decades and now have questions about their ability to retire as well as newer employees who are wondering if they should look for other work. He looked to the task force to explore questions such as whether funding may be available to support the hospital and what the impact of the closure will be on its patients and nearby hospitals.

Avalos said last week’s town hall was one of many opportunities workers must take to impress upon officials of both counties and at the state level the importance of the facilities and urge them to continue exploring strategies for keeping them open.

“I just want a plan and I want the public to be apprised of what it is,” he said. “I want people in both counties to be able to say these are facilities … that are so vital to the region that we’re going to do all that we can to keep them open.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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