Seniors and Nurses Pledge to Fight for Hospital’s Survival  After Meeting with Kaiser Execs     
 
Local Kaiser patients and the registered nurses who care for them will hold a vigil Wednesday outside the Kaiser Manteca Medical Center to show their concern for ongoing service cuts at the facility.
 
The vigil follows yesterday’s protest by seniors and RNs outside Kaiser’s headquarters in downtown Oakland. A delegation of seniors, who traveled from Manteca accompanied by RNs represented by the California Nurses Association, met with Kaiser’s top executives. After executives promised only to assess the situation not restore services, seniors pledged to continue to push for the services they are entitled to.  
 
“The reason we moved from Alameda to Manteca is because Manteca had what we thought at the time was a fully functioning hospital,” said Duane Hadley. Hadley and his wife, Rosie, learned otherwise earlier this fall when she went to Kaiser Manteca with chest pains. “After they kept me for 8, 10, 12 hours, I don’t remember how long it was, they said I had to be transferred to Modesto,” said Rosie Hadley. “One of the big surprises was when they said ‘Oh by the way, we can do the angiogram but if you need anything more we have to transfer you.’ That was really scary, very scary. I did need a stent so obviously I had a 90 percent blockage.”      
 
What:              Community Candle light vigil in Manteca
When:             Wednesday, Nov. 6,  5 pm-7 pm
Where:            Kaiser Manteca Medical Center
                       1777 W. Yosemite Ave., Manteca CA
 
The seniors are calling on Kaiser to re-open the hospital’s third floor to admit patients from the Emergency Room or following surgery, and to stop denying admission to patients in need of longer term recovery services in the second floor sub-acute unit. They are also calling on Kaiser to bring back critical diagnostic services cut earlier this year.
 
The withdrawal of services at Kaiser Manteca is part of the HMO’s new model of care.  At a time when the HMO is expected to gain many new members as the Affordable Care Act goes into effect, including many of the 1100 new residents moving into the neighborhoods near the Kaiser Hospital  in Manteca, their new care model is making it more difficult for patients to be admitted. The ACA, for which Kaiser is a leading industry model, accelerates this trend by providing financial incentives for providers to limit formal hospital admissions and in-patient services.

Another example of Kaiser’s model to restrict access to care is occurring in Hayward CA. Kaiser members there are fighting Kaiser’s plans to close in-patient pediatric services in Hayward on November 17. The closure will force southern Alameda County families with children who need to be hospitalized to drive to Oakland, Santa Clara, or Roseville for care.

Against this backdrop of reduced services and planned closures, the Kaiser insurance company and hospital chain, has grown by more than 21,000 new members in Northern California just since June, and made more than $1.2 billion in profits from January through June.