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| Artist’s conception of north Burlingame Hospital Complex. Note the multi-level parking structure on the left side of the main hospital building. |
Is the proposed new Mills Peninsula Hospital a realistic effort to provide needed medical care for the future? Or is it a real estate venture designed primarily to reap big profits for conglomerate Sutter Health, which has been embroiled in controversy in other Northern California cities?
Those questions loomed large as the Peninsula Health Care District board of directors held its second Community Meeting on May 16 to explain plans for the new hospital, which would replace an existing structure that fails to meet statewide earthquake standards.
Consultants hired by the district to determine bed capacity needs served up a bitter pill that envisions a much smaller hospital than the existing one - from 281 to 232 beds - largely because of what they deemed to be an historic decline in overnight hospital stays. But many in the audience weren’t swallowing it. In fact, nurses contend that the current facility is frequently at or over capacity now.
And the consultants acknowledged that a recent and dramatic spike in hospital admissions may invalidate projections if it becomes an established trend for the rest of this year. One of the statistics that seemed at odds with the smaller bed count was the estimate that the number of San Mateo County residents over the age of 65 will increase 69 percent by the year 2010.
Residents and representatives of nursing and hospital workers’ organizations also questioned whether there are sufficient safeguards for the taxpayers in a letter of intent that was drafted last August as a guideline for a formal lease agreement between the district and Mills-Peninsula Health System. MPHS is an affiliate of Sutter Health and is the current operator of the hospital.
Under the deal being considered, Sutter Health would put up $351 million to build the hospital in exchange for getting a 50-year lease ( renewable for another 50 years ) for the 30 acres that are owned by the hospital district and supported by taxpayers’ dollars. The lease proposes charging Sutter a grand total of $1, that’s one dollar - per year.
Among the issues raised by members of the public are these
- Why has the hospital district chosen to deal exclusively with Sutter Health rather than open up the project to competitive bidding, as is typical procedure with other public agencies in a project of this size?
- Why is Sutter Health anxious to bear the cost of building the new hospital when so many hospitals in California, including some of the largest ones in the Bay Area, are operating in the red? Many hospitals in the state say they cannot raise the money to meet seismic standards by the state deadline of 2008. (Hint Mills-Peninsula is already profitable and it sits on prime real estate in Burlingame.)
- Why has the project ballooned from a replacement hospital to a campus that would include a multi- story parking garage and a separate administrative building? How did Sutter arrive at a price tag of $351 million?
- What other projects does Sutter have in mind for the site and would the district and taxpayers have any control over them or derive any income? Ideas of what to build next to the hospital on the public land range from a medical office building to a high-rise condominium project that might serve as affordable housing for hospital workers.
- Why have the public hearings focused only on the design of the building rather than on the terms of a lease agreement, which is being negotiated behind closed doors? How far into the review process will those terms be laid out for public discussion?
- Why has the district not engaged a skilled negotiator to advise the board and to represent the public’s interest in developing an agreement? Are other funding options possible and, if so, why aren’t those being discussed early in the review process?
- Has the district taken into consideration the trail of issues that dog Sutter Health in other Northern California communities, issues that largely stem from allegations of broken promises and cutbacks of staff and services?
The next meeting of the hospital board will be on May 29 at 515 p.m. in the lower meeting room of Mills-Peninsula Hospital. Among the topics likely to be discussed are opinions from the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) that the two newest members of the district board , Tarilyn Hanko and Dr. Tobin Schneider - have economic conflicts of interest that may prevent them from voting on or discussing the project.
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