A Note About St. Luke's Hospital

[Stephen Elliott]

This is from Nato Green:

CPMC is doing a community meeting at St Luke’s next Wednesday evening
and we need allies. In typical sneakiness, CPMC has been provoking a
small group of homeowners near the hospital to get enraged about the
proposed design and to demand that St Luke’s be rebuilt small on the
current site, which would mean closing the hospital during
construction. No one who depends on St Luke’s for a job or a place for
services trusts CPMC to reopen once they get away with closing it.
Also, they’re moving forward on closing 135 skilled nursing and Sub-
Acute beds (these almost exclusively treat Medicare and Medi-cal
patients) beginning this year, without any apparent plan for where the
patients filling these units will go. Worst of all, CPMC is attempting
to use St Luke's as a bargaining chip to get fast approval on a mega-
deluxe hospital on Van Ness, but their plan I believe will ensure that
as soon as the "Cathedral Hill" hospital is built, we'll be back
fighting about saving St Luke's. Their plan for St Luke's is designed
to fail. And of course union-busting continues unabated.

We’re looking for people to come and support, and will have talking
points and speakers ready to make our demands for the services and the
hospital that the nurses and the patients deserve. Particularly if you
live to the west of the hospital, we need people who will help make
clear that this small group of upset NIMBY folks do not represent the
whole neighborhood. Please let me know if you can come, if you want
more information, etc. Details below.

Thanks,
Nato

St. Luke’s Community Workshop
What are your ideas for the campus?
Join us for a community meeting to discuss the status of the St.
Luke’s campus, and its future.
We want to hear your input on how we can best serve the community!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
When: 6:30pm
Where: St. Luke’s Hospital Café, 2nd Floor
3555 Cesar Chavez (at Valencia)
Food and refreshments will be provided.