Palm Drive Health Care District Board Candidates Forum Video

[Barry]

There are 3 seats open on the Palm Drive Health Care District board and 5 candidates. 2 year ago this was a hotly contested election because the fate of the hospital was stake, with some candidates favoring re-opening the hospital and some not.

This time the fate of the hospital is again at stake! At least one of the candidates, Jim Horn, believes the district funds would be better used elsewhere (urgent care, etc).

The league of women voter's sponsored a forum for the candidates on October 5 in Graton. Here's the video of it:

[Barry]

There are 3 seats open on the Palm Drive Health Care District board and 5 candidates. 2 year ago this was a hotly contested election because the fate of the hospital was stake, with some candidates favoring re-opening the hospital and some not.

This time the fate of the hospital is again at stake! At least one of the candidates, Jim Horn, believes the district funds would be better used elsewhere (urgent care, etc).

The league of women voter's sponsored a forum for the candidates on October 5 in Graton. Here's the video of it:

Here's the Sonoma West's writeup of the above forum:


Forum introduces Palm Drive Health Care District candidates
https://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_we...f8a786b43.html

Posted: Wednesday, October 12, 2016 12:04 pm
by Amie Windsor Sonoma West Staff Writer [email protected]

Just hours after Sonoma County’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) approved detachment of the Rio Nio, Forestville and Guerneville school districts from the Palm Drive Health Care District (PDHCD), five board candidates sat in the hot seat at the Graton Community Club to discuss their visions and goals for the future of the district.

Three board positions terminate at the end of the year. In December, Jim Maresca, currently serving as board president, and Sandra Bodley will say their goodbyes to the district. Marsha Sue Lustig’s seat is also up for grabs; Lustig, however is seeking re-election.

Joining Lustig for the three spots are Eira Klich-Heartt, Jim Horn, Robert Cary and Gail Thomas.

Klich-Heartt has almost 30 years of nursing experience in Sonoma County and 44 years in healthcare management. She currently teaches in the nursing programs at both Santa Rosa Junior College and University of San Francisco. Horn is a former PDHCD director. As an engineer, he has designed and built components of Kaiser, Sutter and Memorial hospitals. Cary is a retired business owner who is running his campaign with Thomas, the current president of the Sonoma West Medical Foundation. Thomas, a 37-year West County resident, also touts long-term experience in major management and consulting positions with Duke University Medical School and the National Institutes of Health.

The Cary-Thomas campaign, as described Wednesday night, hinges on keeping Sonoma West Medical Center (SWMC) open.

“As a community, we are very, very lucky to have a hospital open,” Cary said in his opening statement. According to the duo’s Facebook page, Cary and Thomas aim to keep the hospital in the community financially viable and thriving and work with the hospital to provide more services to local communities.
Klich-Heartt, Horn and Lustig all believe the district should expand its focus to create a more holistic and community-serving healthcare entity.

“I want to enlarge the view of what healthcare will be,” Klick-Heartt said. “The district needs to be responsible for more services,” including safety and teen and mental health.

As a current board member, Lustig has worked with Bodley, PDHCD Executive Director Alanna Brogan and 20 West County healthcare professionals to help establish additional services within West County, including the soon-to-be-detached River area.

“I do see us continuing to work in community services,” Lustig said, citing needs in wellness, senior services and transportation.

Horn believes the district needs to partner with healthcare providers around West County to help provide services in lieu of providing services directly.

“We need programs that benefit all of West County,” Horn said. “The district shouldn’t provide direct services. We should provide funding and coordination.”

Funding could be an issue for the district for two reasons. With part of the River area detaching, the district will lost 42 percent of its parcel tax funding. Additionally, the district is still in bankruptcy, owing roughly $20 million to creditors, lenders and employees who lost their jobs when Palm Drive Hospital closed in 2014. These two factors could likely prevent the district to provide supplemental cash flow to the hospital. In the management services agreement between the district and the hospital, the district currently allocates $1 million to the hospital, if the extra funds are available.

To relieve the district from the pressure of a tighter budget, Horn believes the district needs to cut back on administrative costs. He also believes in selling or leasing the hospital.

“It’s a way to get money from our only asset,” Horn said.

Lustig agreed that leasing or selling the hospital is likely in the district’s future.

“I understand how financially vulnerable we are,” Lustig said.

Neither Cary nor Thomas believe the reduced funding from the River’s detachment will affect the district.
“Losing $400,000 won’t matter,” Cary said.

Thomas believes the district will still be able to provide the $1 million fulfillment to the hospital, though didn’t explain how.

In SWMC’s current 2016-17 proposed budget, the hospital relies on that $1 million support from the district to maintain a profitable year, leading some in the community to believe the hospital could fail financially.
One option for the hospital, should it fail, could be morphing the building into an urgent care center, as suggested in a question by moderator Alice Richardson.

Should that option be brought onto the table, neither Cary nor Thomas wish to see an urgent care center established from the skeleton of the hospital.

“There’s no comparison between a hospital with an emergency room and an urgent care center,” Cary said. “Urgent care centers have no practices beyond a standard doctor’s office.”

Thomas added that after Palm Drive Hospital closed, the board received a request for proposal from Memorial Hospital.

“It would have cost $2.2 million to bring an urgent care to Sebastopol,” Thomas said.

In the RFP, Memorial offered to run a 24-hour urgent care center for roughly $800,000 a month.
Horn and Klich-Heartt acknowledged between 80 and 90 percent of emergency room cases could be dealt with in urgent care centers.

“Urgent care facilities are there to take care of injuries and accidents that don’t need acute care,” Klich-Heartt said.

Because Sebastopol already has an urgent care center across from the hospital, Horn thinks the district should work to establish urgent care centers in Guerneville and Bodega Bay.

Lustig wasn’t certain an urgent care center would be viable but believed 24-hour coverage would benefit the community.

“There are hours of medical care that are not covered all over,” Lustig said.

The entire forum, which was hosted by the Graton Community Club, League of Women Voters and the Graton Projects Group, is available to view online at the League’s website, lwvsonoma.org. Additional topics in the forum include district transparency, Pipeline Health, SWMC donor Dan Smith and the two pending lawsuits against the hospital. The forum video runs shy of two hours.

[Barry]

And in more hospital news, see this:



Health district detachment; setting stage for reconsideration

Posted: Wednesday, October 12, 2016 11:26 am
by Frank Robertson Sonoma West Staff Writer [email protected]

County officials agreed to detach the lower Russian River area from the Palm Drive Health Care District last week, setting the stage for a protest proceeding expected to last into next year.

In a landmark vote that will drastically lower the Palm Drive Health Care District’s approximately $4 million in annual property tax revenues, members of the Sonoma County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) voted unanimously to detach the Monte Rio, Guerneville and Forestville area school district taxpayers from the Health Care District now in its second bankruptcy proceeding.

Continues here.

[Peacetown Jonathan]

It is shocking that anyone would run on a platform to CLOSE OUR HOSPITAL AND EMERGENCY ROOM and continue to take our tax dollars for other purposes.

Yet this is what Jim Horn. Marsha Sue Lustig and Eira Klich-Heartt say they will do if they are elected to the Palm Drive District Health Board.

it is shocking that any elected official who cares about the people of our city would endorse candidates who want to close this hospital and deny emergency room care to thousands of their neighbors. Yet Council members Robert Jacob and Una Glass are supporting Jim Horn and his plan to close the hospital, as they are both listed as endorsers on this campaign website.

We pay THE SAME TAX whether the hospital and its life saving emergency room stays open or is closed!

Vote for Gail Thomas and Rob Cary for Palm Drive District Health Board this November, and let your friends know that if we want an emergency room for our community, we need to elect members to the Palm Drive District Board committed to opening our hospital--not the scheme to close it down.

There are 3 seats open on the Palm Drive Health Care District board and 5 candidates. 2 year ago this was a hotly contested election because the fate of the hospital was stake, with some candidates favoring re-opening the hospital and some not.

This time the fate of the hospital is again at stake! At least one of the candidates, Jim Horn, believes the district funds would be better used elsewhere (urgent care, etc).

The league of women voter's sponsored a forum for the candidates on October 5 in Graton. Here's the video of it: