**MEDIA ADVISORY FOR MON., APRIL 20**

Contact: Jennie Smith-Camejo, jennie.smith-camejo@seiu1021.org, (510) 710-0201

At Mayor Lurie’s direction, the SF Department of Public Health is making sweeping cuts to public health programs at the expense of the city’s most vulnerable populations, including low-income seniors, homeless and underserved youth, immigrants, and women and children of color. At Monday’s Health Commission meeting, healthcare workers and their patients plan to fill the room and share testimony during public comment about the devastating impact of these cuts. Advocates are calling on the city’s elected leadership, including the mayor, to support Prop D to generate long-term funding for critical services such as these in the wake of Trump’s cuts, and to use some of the city’s $1.4 billion in reserves in the meantime to ensure continuity of services.

On the chopping block are three clinics (two serving marginalized youth, one serving low-income seniors with mental health needs); SFDPH’s Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health program, which provides critical at-home care to marginalized families to improve maternal health and neonatal outcomes; and Laguna Honda Hospital’s clinical nurse specialists who in recent years were integral in making sure the city’s only safety net long-term care facility met the standards for recertification for Medicaid and Medicare.

What: Healthcare workers, patients provide public comment to Health Commission on the impact of cuts and closures
When: Monday, April 20, starting at 3 p.m. (Media availability at 2 p.m.)
Where: SF City Hall, Room 408
Visuals: Impacted workers and patients will flood room and hallway, holding signs and waiting to speak at public comment

Among those attending and speaking in public comment will be Lisa Cadillo, a medical evaluation assistant at Michael Baxter Larkin Street Clinic, a clinic in the Tenderloin that plays an integral part of wraparound services offered to unhoused and marginalized youth. “If this clinic is closed, kids would die. It breaks my heart because yes, we can refer them other places, but they will not go. They found a place here where they feel safe. They feel heard here. And sometimes they don’t get the good, compassionate care that they would get here.” In a sign of growing backlash to the closure of clinics, Lisa’s story has rapidly spread on social media.

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SEIU Local 1021 represents nearly 60,000 employees in local governments, nonprofit agencies, health care programs, courts, and schools throughout Northern California, including seven private colleges and numerous community colleges. SEIU Local 1021 is a diverse, member-driven organization with members who work to make our cities, schools, colleges, counties, and special districts safe and healthy places to live and raise our families.