San Leandro Hospital a key issue in Eden health district race

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Nov 1, 2008 | by Eric Kurhi

Two challengers are running against two incumbents in the Eden Township Healthcare District race, with the main issue being the future of San Leandro Hospital.

The district will cease to have a voice in crafting policy for Castro Valley's Eden Medical Center as soon as ground is broken -- probably in 2010 -- on a new $300 million facility that Sutter Health Care intends to build as a replacement for the aging, seismically unsound current structure.

As part of the deal to get the new hospital, Eden Township purchased the San Leandro facility and leases it to Sutter. That hospital operates at a significant loss, and Sutter is committed to keeping the acute-care department open only until June 2009. After that, it has the option to either buy the facility or end the lease and hand it back over to Eden Township.

If that happens, Eden will have to decide what to do with a hospital that, according to board Chairman Francisco Rico, is losing about $500,000 a month.

Challengers Ronald Hull and Vin Sawhney both stress that the hospital's acute-care ward must be kept open to serve the community.

"There has been an acute-care facility here for 45 years," said Hull, a podiatrist who has been a longtime observer at Eden Township district meetings. "The population is here to support it, but we need to find out how to make it self-sustaining."

Hull unsuccessfully ran against incumbents Rico and Rajendra Ratnesar in the 2004 election. Sawhney, a gastroenterologist, said he is running "to ensure that the people of this community are given an adequate voice on the board." The current board is "rubber- stamping" Sutter's wishes, he said.

"They cannot make decisions based on reasoning that every facility must make a profit," he said. "There are going to be essential services that will be money losers, but Sutter looks at them like each must stand alone."

Rico, an anesthesiologist, said that even a nonprofit entity cannot operate at a loss, and that Sutter has spent money trying to make San Leandro Hospital more financially feasible, "but still the losses continue."

Retired surgeon Ratnesar agreed that "at this time, the economy does not support running it as a free-standing facility." Alternatives would include using the facility for a rehabilitation clinic -- a more cost-efficient venture than acute care.

Ratnesar said he and Rico were the boardmembers mainly responsible for securing the deal to get the new Eden Medical Center. However, some community members have said they did it at a cost of relinquishing control over the facility, something Rico said was necessary to seal the deal. Board members serve for four years.