Town Hall Meeting, Today Oct. 10 . 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Registered nurses and healthcare workers are joining forces with labor, civic and community leaders at a town hall meeting Wednesday, Oct. 10 to mobilize efforts to ensure Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Calif. remains open following the operators filing for bankruptcy, the California Nurses Association (CNA) announced today.

“Seton Medical Center provides essential services to our patients, the majority of whom are low income,” said Charles Bell, a registered nurse who has worked at Seton since 2002. “We have a busy emergency room, and we provide cardiac intervention surgeries and procedures that are not available from other providers in this area. We also provide care for many elderly patients who would have a hard time travelling to get care elsewhere.”

What: Town Hall Meeting on Efforts to Keep Seton Medical Center Open
When: Wednesday, October 10 — 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Where: United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco, CA

Speakers include:

• State Senator Scott Wiener
• Assembly Speaker pro Tempore Kevin Mullin
• Assemblymember Phil Ting
• San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa
• Daly City Mayor Juslyn Manalo

Seton Medical Center is a 357-bed facility that serves San Francisco and south San Mateo County. According to Daly City officials, 28,000 residents visit Seton’s emergency room annually, and 85 percent of those patients receive their insurance through Medi-Cal or Medicaid.

The Daughters of Charity founded Seton Medical Center in 1893. In 2015, Verity Health System assumed control of six Daughters of Charity facilities including Seton Medical Center. At that time, the Attorney General imposed a number of conditions for the transaction to go through, including the requirement that Seton would operate as an acute-care hospital offering emergency services through 2025.

Nurses are calling on the California Attorney General to mandate that any future owner or operator of the Seton Medical Center fulfill that same requirement.

On September 25, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to maintain that same requirement. In passing the resolution, the board of supervisors noted that the hospital is part of the county’s health care safety net and that the county has already contributed $40 million in taxpayer funds to Seton Medical Center for patient care and for seismic upgrades.

The Daly City Council passed a resolution August 24 acknowledging that the Seton Medical Center site is zoned only for hospital use and that the council is committed to maintaining that zoning. In a statement released following the vote, Mayor Juslyn Manalo said, “Our action last night is a clear sign to the community that the council has no desire to change the current hospital zoning. The land is zoned for hospital use and will remain so. Seton Medical Center is the only hospital serving vulnerable populations in Daly City and surrounding communities and it has provided vital medical care to those with the highest need. Our City Council members all agree that it is just too important to the community to shut its doors in Daly City.”