'Friends' gain more support for hospital
June 4, 2002, Independent
BURLINGAME - It's a bit of an uprising, the public support for the hospital. So says Gwen Mitchell, member of the pro-hospital group "Friends of Mills-Peninsula."
The board of Mills-Peninsula Health Services and its offshoot "Friends" group have compiled a petition of 8,000 signed names they say support the rebuilding of Peninsula Medical Center.
In a dramatic display, Mitchell and fellow "Friends" member Dr. Michael Wood carted six, 6-inch binders full of signatures to the Peninsula Health Care District's monthly meeting May 30, placing the signatures at the district board members' feet.
"We want your commitment to a single mission . . . building a new hospital," Mitchell told the district board.
If the hospital and its landlord - the district - can't agree on plans for the proposed new $351 million hospital, the project could lose its financing and/or miss the state deadlines for seismic safety, Mitchell said.
The hospital must close if it fails to meet state-mandated seismic standards by 2013.
"I'm sure you'll agree that closing Peninsula Medical Center would be a disaster," Mitchell said. Peninsula Health Care District oversees the public land upon which the hospital would be built.
Under a proposed 50-year lease, Mills-Peninsula Health Services - with a loan obtained by its corporate parent Sutter – would finance the new state-of-the-art acute care hospital. In turn, the district would lease Mills-Peninsula the land at $1 per year for 50 years.
The project must ultimately go to the voters, but must first pass muster with the district board.
For almost two years, the district and the hospital have negotiated. Neither side will discuss the specifics of the negotiations. However, at public meetings the district board members have expressed concern over the hospital's proposed bed count and services offered.
Some members of the public have told the district they're concerned that the community will have little say over services offered or other details of their local hospital. This concerns residents who assert that because the public owns the land, it should have more input in hospital plans.
But those residents don't represent the majority, Mitchell said. The majority of residents just want to see the hospital built.
The district has encountered numerous problems in the past year. Three of the five board members can't participate in hospital negotiations due to potential conflicts of interest.
Board members Terilyn Hanko and Dr. Tobin Schneider have refrained from the discussions upon advice from the state Fair Political Practices Commission, indicating possible sources of income conflicts. Schneider, a surgeon, receives occasional reimbursements from the hospital for emergency room patients he treats. Hanko works for a pharmaceutical company that does business with Mills-Peninsula.
Board chair Vince Muzzi also has a potential conflict, since he owns property in close proximity to the proposed hospital's boundaries. The district has spent some months sorting through how to work around these conflicts. Hanko is in the process of appealing the FPPC advice.
Negotiations between the district and the hospital stopped for several months, in part due to the conflicts of interest.
In a pre-meeting press conference, Mitchell said she didn't know which side decided to stop the negotiations, but stated, "We really want to get his done, I can't imagine we would have been the obstacle."
At the meeting, district members asserted that the district had been unfairly blamed for the holdup, when the hospital has altered its plans over the past year-and-a-half, "I think it's very unfair to this board," said Muzzi.
The suggestion that the district's attempts to clarify its conflicts have held up the process "is really a gross misrepresentation," Muzzi said. "I would ask that you revise your presentation."
Mitchell countered, "There has not been any presentation where we have charged the board with delaying the process."
But the literature distributed by the "Friends" group does urge the public to voice its support for the hospital to the district. "We need your help to get approval from the Peninsula Health Care District Board," reads a flyer sent to thousands of Peninsula residents. "Tell the Peninsula Health Care District Board members and our community leads that you support the rebuild effort."
The "Friends" steering committee is composed primarily of former and current Mills-Peninsula board members.
The group formed late last year, to educate the public about the hospital plans and gain support for the project, Mitchell said.
While Mills-Peninsula call the flyer an educational endeavor, some district board members call the flyer - and its distribution method - unethical.
The literature is a scare tactic, aimed to frighten residents into supporting the hospital by telling them Peninsula might close, some district board members say.
Sending the literature to patients - even children - was particularly inappropriate, some believe.
"Friends" members claim they violated no law or privacy by sending the material to patients. Further, they claimed that any child patients who received the literature would not have returned the support card.
District board member Terilyn Hanko disagreed. "They could well be represent in that 8,000," she said.
With the argument over the patient mailing list, district board member Dr. Don Newman accused his colleagues of getting into a "side issue of no great importance."
He did take issue with any implication that the district doesn't want the hospital built.
"There is no one party . . . that wants this hospital more than the other party," Newman said. "We all want to build a hospital and we're going to build a hospital."
However, at a press conference before the meeting, Mitchell expressed her doubts. "I'm old," she said. "I'd like to see it happen before I die."