Sutter’s Cathedral Hill development plan hurts the 99%

Registered nurses from throughout San Francisco will have a strong public message to deliver, and will set up a nurses’ first aid tent for the public, to protest Sutter Health’s plan to shrink St. Luke’s by two-thirds while building an enormous hospital at Cathedral Hill.  As part of the 99%, RNs believe Sutter CPMC must meet community needs for housing of low-income residents in the central city, mitigate traffic issues, address issues of jobs and union protections, and maintain services to provide a standard of care that San Franciscans deserve, such as skilled nursing and psychiatric services.

The action is part of a broader day-long, nonviolent mass occupation occurring in several locations throughout the city this Friday.  

What:             Protest Corporate Sutter CPMC’s Development
When:             Friday, January 20, 11:00 a.m.
Where:            Cathedral Hill Hotel/Van Ness & Geary

Some impacts of CPMC’s current hospital development plan on the 99%:

The CPMC plan has drawn widespread opposition from nurses, patients, and a broad cross-section of San Francisco community groups and residents. If successful, CPMC would increase citywide healthcare disparities by segregating low-income, primarily Medi-Cal patients at a downsized St. Luke’s, which would have fewer specialists and fewer services, while concentrating on wealthier patients, who would have access to more comprehensive care at Cathedral Hill, a policy that nurses condemn as “medical redlining.”

Further, CPMC is pushing the proposal over neighbor objections. CPMC’s Cathedral Hill complex would also disrupt the surrounding neighborhoods with 10,000 additional car trips per day, and necessitate the demolition of rent-controlled apartments, requiring the city to grant an exemption from the significant housing requirements of the Van Ness Special Use District.    
                                 
St. Luke’s RNs and the California Nurses Association have sharply criticized the reduction of services that create lower standards of care for St. Luke’s patients and the surrounding ethnically diverse community.  With most of the population growth expected in the southeast of the city, more services, not less, are needed.

CPMC’s own environmental impact review concluded that the best alternative from a citywide environmental, traffic, and planning perspective is for CPMC to build a smaller Cathedral Hill and expand St. Luke’s, which is what nurses, healthcare activists, and residents from the southeastern neighborhoods have been proposing. Nurses support healthcare for the 99%, and want Sutter CPMC held accountable for providing healthcare for all, irrespective of socio-economic status.