That’s all folks, yes it took forever to get through all the questionnaires, but I thought that each person who actually filled out the questionnaire deserved their day in the spotlight since these questionnaires tend to get all shoved on a page even though the candidates put so much time into completing them. However, there were a few out there that did not complete the questionnaire.
Who are these slackers?
Read on…
1. Under what circumstances do you think the Healthcare District should be dissolved, and what process would you use to determine whether or not to pursue that course of action.
Alameda Hospital is an ongoing business and has been so for many years. I see change and not closure as a remedy for the times we face. The real question is how to keep the ER open. My understanding is that if an emergency room closes, the county conducts a hearing and issues findings to the state. However, the state has not used this information to keep hospitals open even when the data is dire. I would support legislation to put more teeth into the county’s findings or force the state to consider the option of alternatives to closure. I would support a local ordinance regarding declarations of “essential public services” for ER, trauma and ICU. This is truly the case in Alameda where the nearest emergency room outside of the island is at least a 15-20 minute ride whereas an on island trip to the ER is 5-7 life saving minutes.
1. Under what circumstances do you think the Healthcare District should be dissolved, and what process would you use to determine whether or not to pursue that course of action.
The original ballot language is pretty clear that the purpose of creating the healthcare district in 2002 was to keep Alameda Hospital open. So, from my perspective, if there is ever a moment that Alameda Hospital needs to be closed – it will be time to reconsider the role and function of the City of Alameda Healthcare District as well. What’s important to keep in mind, is that the Board of the Healthcare District does not have the authority to dissolve the District, nor to restructure the parcel tax (other than to set the amount that should be collected each year). Dissolving the District, or fundamentally changing anything about the parcel tax (like the method of calculating it, or who has to pay it) would have to be decided by the citizen voters of the City of Alameda, in a special or general election.
A few bits and pieces for the weekend. Yesterday City Manager John Russo tweeted this news:
Yes, apparently even though there is a new Target in fairly close proximity to Alameda that has recently opened in Emeryville/Oakland, Target is still interested in opening up a store in Alameda. Go figure. Which can only mean one thing: Alamedans shop at Target a lot.
The last proposed site of the Alameda Target was for Alameda Landing, so I am assuming that remains the location of choice for Target. Or, perhaps now that Alameda Point will be handed over to the City, they might be eyeing some Alameda Point parcels instead. Although my only Target request, please have those lockable wheel thingies on the carts. Thanks!
On Monday (and I referenced it in yesterday’s post) John Knox White wrote a really great post addressing a rash of blog posts that Alameda Hospital Board Director Elliott Gorelick had recently put up about some fairly old business. Interestingly enough, Elliott Gorelick has since removed his posts, I have linked to where they used to be, but if you click through you may not find it. Google Cache still has a copy of the posts, so I’ll link to those as well and have saved screen shots from the cached versions.
Let’s rewind a bit so that you can understand the full scope of the story. So last November Elliott Gorelick beat out Leah Williams for the third seat on the Hospital Board. Leah Williams had been appointed to the position and was technically running as an incumbent. Why she didn’t put “incumbent” as her title position I still don’t know. I personally think she probably would have gotten more votes had she gone with the “incumbent” designation as opposed to “Business Owner/Attorney” (or vice versa). But I digress.
Anyway, there were four people running for the three spots and Elliott Gorelick with his “Pharmacist” designation received that last spot. After losing, Leah Williams decided to file a whole host of complaints over Elliott Gorelick’s use of “Pharmacist” as his title on the ballot. She emailed a lot of people to publicize this and I believe she got little traction. I addressed it in this post and while Elliott Gorelick now characterizes that post as my saying that it was “no big deal” what I actually wrote was:
News that Alameda Hospital was back on Alameda County’s stroke transport list was a sign that Alameda Hospital’s Stroke Care Certification approval was imminent.
To quickly recap in November of last year Alameda Hospital was removed from the Alameda County stroke transport list. What that means was that in an emergency call, unless specifically requested, stroke victims would be diverted to the closest Stroke Certified center. Alameda Hospital began the process of becoming a Stroke Center and was added back to the transport list in mid September of this year.
Word was swirling that Alameda Hospital had now reached its goal and had recently achieved certification as a Stroke Center after an on-site review completed at the end of September. I imagine this news will make some people happy and others not so much.
There has been some discussion about the wound care center that Alameda Hospital intends to open. I was unclear what exactly a wound care center did, but was told that it was a specialized clinic that would help patients with chronic wounds heal faster using these hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers.
I was also informed that this wound care clinic would be the first (and only) in the East Bay, which hopefully will help drive clients to the wound care clinic, since what the Hospital needs is revenue.
The Wound Care Clinic will not be opening at Alameda Hospital, instead the Hospital has leased space at Marina Village (the address matches up to the building closest to the California Heritage development). Based on the public notice to construction bidders, the space the Alameda Hospital is leasing almost 11K sq ft, but the clinic itself will only take up less than half of the space:
One of few critiques I have heard about Alameda Hospital — yes, that again, you are all going to be so thankful when the City Council comes back — is that because it is small that its smallness is why it cannot provide quality care.
In fact, Hospital Boardmember Elliott Gorelick expended a few blog posts randomly touting different reports of “say[ing] it better than” he could. The brilliance of posting those excerpted quotes from various is that I doubt many people actually clicked through to read what the reports actually said. In fact, when I clicked through to all the links, I was met with abstracts for the report rather than the whole report itself, with the exception of one report. While this report’s conclusion was that:
Admission to higher-volume hospit als was associated with a reduction in mortality for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia, although there was a volume threshold above which an increased condition-specific hospit al volume was no longer significantly associated with reduced mortality.
Within the text of the report, they noted that:
Yesterday, I was poking around the Alameda Healthcare District Board of Directors aka Hospital Board website, not because I had any aching desire to watch the Board Meeting — I honestly would not recommend it, no offense to anyone on the Board, but they are fairly dry — but because I was going to watch it anyway based on some reports about what actually went down at the last meeting on January 10. I think I am the 8th person to have watched this video, that’s pretty sad.
Michele Ellson at the Island had a really great editorial on MLK, Jr. Day about the state of the political dialogue in the City of Alameda. One of the responses she received was from newest Hospital Board member Elliott Gorelick who, on one hand in response to Michele asking how to break the cycle and “get to a place where we may disagree, but we can still respect everyone’s commitment to making Alameda a good place?” responds that people should have “condemn[ed]” those that make personal attacks. He pointed to his own situation when incumbent Leah Williams, who ultimately lost the election, filed complaints with various agencies about the ultimate ballot designation that was selected, which she felt “misled” voters. He felt that people should have come out saying how “disgusting” her actions were.
I guess by folks not writing blog posts condemning Leah Williams equaled a “culture of arrogance” where people not in the clique are “ignored and criticized” and that action is as bad as any four-letter word.
On the other hand, he then points out that Michele E. not writing about all of the dirty details equaled a “reporter’s assessment of how relevant it was.”
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