No Free Lunch!

Thursday is a good day to go outside for lunch. Cambio Healthcare consultants have held up the intern's and resident's contract, messed with union physicians and generally blamed caregivers, unions, and patients for their own shocking lack of vision and leadership. Yes, we have officially reached the blame and recrimination portion of the consulting contract.

Those darn interns and residents, “it’s the free Highland meals and their pricey health insurance that’s eating up profits.” Give me a break, they’re young, healthy and they don’t use sick time. Besides, anyone forced to eat only Highland food for days on end needs decent health coverage.

The challenge will be to not bicker and blame each other, see we’re left with the mess and well, the consultants, rumor is they already left. We’re a team, so rally to support Highland interns, residents, nurses, caregivers and all the people who do real work everyday without expense accounts.

Thursday April 28
12:00 noon
In Front of the Emergency Room
Highland Hospital
See You There!

Measure A- Fun with Funds

The Tribune's on the job. The sups are giving out the non-medical center monies. The best part of the article are the pictures of Dave Kears and Alice Lai-Bitker with the captions: "Kears says recommendations are fair" and "(Kears) is trying to do his best." Way to stand by your man Alice! You're gonna have to do some super sucking up to the Sheriff to top that, how about: "I just love a man in a uniform."

To read all the gory details click here:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2687758

Discharge This

“Get over to Vista Isles. Their nursing home division wants to get rid of Medicare patients and replace them with private payers. They’re loosing fifteen grand per bed per year. Guess who got the removal contract?”

“How are you getting rid of them? You’re not killing them, are you?” asked Flag.

“Of course I’m not killing them!” said Zaragosa. “I’m, uh, liberating them.”…

What Zaragosa was doing was driving them out of state. Most were senile or had Alzheimer’s disease. He’d strip them of ID and pack them in vans. Then he’d drive north and scatter them around bus stations from Macon to Shreveport.

Tim Dorsey
Hammerhead Ranch Motel

So is Mr. Dorsey a healthcare consultant? Will he be handling the medical center’s re-organization of the discharge planning process? Nope, we have social workers trying to get people out of the hospital and since Cambio came along we have fewer and fewer of them (down five and one with a foot out the door). So how has our leadership responded to this crisis? Well, the department head apparently requested nine computers and a corner office, instead of additional social workers.

Brad Cleveland Talks Turkey

The medical center has employees from 3 different unions, Brad Cleveland works for SEIU 616. He does exceptional research and analysis, he goes to countless meetings and stays cheerful. Good thing we have him. Check out his latest piece:

http://www.seiu616.org/blog/index.cfm?display=entry&bge_id=177

Cambio Pink Slips the Shrinks

That’s right the Tennessee Titans are at it again. They sent notice to the psychiatrists at John George Psychiatric Pavilion that their jobs would be contracted out to a subcontractor effective June 1, 2005. That’s right, the Psychic Hotline will be providing the service at a fraction of the cost. Actually Cambio has some friends, cronies or relatives they plan to give work to. Cambio once again forgot about union protection, the Memorandum of Understanding and the physician’s liaison committee, so this will likely turn into a long, protracted and expensive legal dispute, which will cost time, energy and money.

Staff can barely contain their excitement at the consultant withdrawal. Occupation of the medical center by health care consultants has created huge problems, stress and political instability. As a step toward autonomous self-governance and healing, staff have proposed that all Cambio hires and promotions be re-interviewed for their positions after the official pull-out in August.

The medical center is a mere $3 million over budget and still Supervisor Haggerty wants to see lay-offs. Meanwhile the County’s own department of Risk Management overspent by $ 7.6 million and the supervisors are not whining about fiscal mismanagement. The hospital deserves a break.

Arnold Folded Like A Cheap Suit

That’s right folks the governor is no match for the nurses. Arnold got tired of sneaking into hotels and hiding from angry teachers, nurses and firefighter who followed him like a bad smell. Why the superhero developed the political equivalent of a social disease, that’s right Mr. Muscle now has “an image problem.” So Arnie gave in and took his “pension reform initiative” off the table. We did it!

Dirt Alert- See Arnold Run

As most Dirt readers already know nurses are chasing the governor around the county. He’s has attacked the nurses, the teachers, the police, the firemen, the disabled, the children and the poor: special interest groups. As one teacher said, “only girlie men break promises to children.”

He plans to fundraise for the initiatives
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
at 6:00pm
in San Francisco at the Ritz Carlton (Stockton and California)

It’s a rally, it’s time to stand by teachers and nurses and insist that we fix education and healthcare and stop blaming service providers. Consultants and managers are welcome to attend. See you there. Need to know more check out www.calnurses.org.