Health Care Victory at San Francisco General

City Supervisors Reinstate Staff Positions

Ed Kinchley, Health Care Industry Chair

SEIU 1021 won a big victory this week at the San Francisco Board of Supes' Budget and Finance Committee. On Nov. 14, board members Tom Ammiano, Aaron Peskin and Bevan Dufty — voted unanimously to reinstate all the staff positions in inpatient psychiatry at SFGH that had been cut during the budget process in the Spring.

Thanks go to everyone who's been working hard in the ongoing saga of psychiatric beds at San Francisco General Hospital and the Progress Foundation's new Community Urgent Care (CUC) program.

What happened

A month ago, on Oct. 10th, our members and a number of important community members testified at a board hearing on the psych beds. To Health Director Mitch Katz — who had originally proposed cutting 14 inpatient psych beds and funding a new program to be run by the Progress Foundation (our private/non-profit members) — that meant 14 Acute Diversion Unit (ADU) beds. Katz continued his attempt to mislead the supervisors and the public into believing that 14 inpatient psych beds could be replaced by 14 ADU beds.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi asked for a hearing on the issue, and on Oct.10th our members and community advocates and family members strongly argued against this misinformation from the health director.

First and next steps

Finally convinced, the supervisors acted to correct the situation. On November 14 they voted to reinstate the funding to maintain staffing for the 14 inpatient psych beds. Local 1021 members and staff who testified argued consistently that it's not okay to pit the two programs against each other, and that the supervisors should supplement the budget so that both programs would continue to be funded.

Dr. Katz argued that the Progress Foundation program will not be ready to open until next fiscal year anyway, so he proposed taking the money that had been budgeted for their program and using that money to fund the inpatient psych beds.  The union argued that Progress would not be able to get their new program started without funding. The board committee tabled the proposal for a supplemental expenditure.

Stay tuned for further developments. Several members urged the Budget Committee to create a task force, including staff from SFGH Inpatient Psych, the Progress Foundation, and representatives from impacted families and communities ,to discuss this important policy question separate from the budget process. We will continue to push for such a task force, and to have our members participate on it.