to procedures like colonoscopy is, i depend on cpmc on monday of this week, my daughter gave birth to my 9 pound 12 ounce grandson. my daughter was first treated for type one diabetes at cpmc and of all of her pregnancies are high risk requiring best possible care. from an old problem of asthma to procedures like colonoscopies i depend on the cpmc doctors for my most important medical needs. i want any children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to have access to the same great care that we have been sing. the proposed plans to build a new hospital will ensure that people of san francisco continue to have access to great care

they have been receiving from the hospital in many cases longer than i. this rebuild is vital for our future's generations health, well-being. thank you for your time. please support the rebuilding of cpmc. thank you. >> congratulations, g >> good evening. my name is vanessa gutierrez and my daughter was a patient of cpmc. on may 2007 my 4-month-old daughter became very ill. after rerushed her to the e.r., at st. lukes doctors could not figure out what was wrong with her. the next day she was diagnosed with a condition where her intestines were tangled and she was going to need immediate

surgery. once with arrived at cpmc an ultrasound revealed her intestines were fine but her gallbladder was twice normal size. for a moment, i could not help to think that i would be walking out of the hospital without my daughter in my arms. doctors concluded it was just a nasty virus and needed to run its course. the next morning, my daughter had a rash all over her body. her eyes, lips and mouth were bright red. the palms of her hands and feet were red and her fever was over 105 degrees. at this time doctors concluded it was caw saw kentucky disease. -- we were -- soon after i met other parents who had not been as fortunate with their kids as my daughter. there is no test for kawasaki disease.

other families were told that it was a virus but they were sent home to let the virus run its course. for this reason, i'll always be grateful to cpmc. i support their plans to rebuild. a new medical office will ensure that people of san francisco continue to have access to the great care they have been receiving from the hospital. just like my daughter did. this rebuild is vital for a future generation's health care and well-being. thank you for saving my daughter's life. >> hi. my name is dr. may dean burke. i am a pediatrician. i'm here to voice my strong support for the rebuild of cpmc on the st. luke's campus and that is really for two reasons. one, definitely my role as

medical director of bayview but also as another capacity that i work for cpmc which was when i first started, i also did critical care transport and i had the experience of taking kids in the back of the ambulance from one campus to the next campus to they could have specialized procedure or to have an evaluation done. and just as a pediatrician and as a physician, it's scary. it is much better to have those services all located together in one campus. and that type of high-quality excellent care is the type of care that i want to have available for the patients that i see. the kids that i care for at bayview child health center are roughly 96% medicaid. and none of that is counted as

charity care. right? that's the medicaid shortfall that the doctor was talking about earlier. but all of our families have access to the high quality care that we provide to cpmc and in fact, i've been working with the senior management to work on expanding the services that we can provide at bayview and so for that reason, i am here to voice my very strong support and i want to thank you for your time and being here to listen to this important issue. thanks. >> thank you. >> while she is coming you have, our next three. >> thank you president tierney, president olague and members of the san francisco health and planning commissions for hearing

this important issue tonight. my name is theresa timson and regime representing the women's community clinic in support of cpmc. i have lived in san francisco for over 30 years and most of those years i workeded a a human resource's professional. i have supported the clinic for the past three years and i have been on their advisory board. the clinic is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of women and girls in the san francisco bay area. since 1999, the women's community clinic has used a volunteer-based business model to provide free health services to women and girls. they have supported the women's community clinic for many years through grants and health care service and most recently they have provided us with the depoost provide ultrasounds for our clients through their radiology department allowing our clients access to diagnostic services that otherwise would

have come at a long waits. we believe strongly that preventtive care is essential to the lifelong healthened that all women deserve excellent care regardless of their income or background. as such, we applaud cpmc for taking a long range plan to update our facilities to ensure that women and children receive state of the art patient care for future generations. the proposed location of van ness and geary and maintaining of women and children's services and mid wivery program will increase access to ob/gyn services. in addition, the centralized location is definitely much more accessible than california street. in conclusion, i support building cpmc and ask you to do the same. >> if your name was called, feel

free to just walk up. >> good evening, my national is dr. laura nmp orel. i have been a practicing ob/gyn for the last six years. so this is from dr. kirsch. as chief to have st. luke's medical staff i'm writing to express support for the master plan. served as a member of the blue ribbon panel and can confirm they have revised plans to reform to the recommendations of the panel. in particular, cpmc has committed $250 million for the initial phase of rebuilding the st. luke's campus prucking an entirely new in-patient facility. it is also important to know that -- these recommendations

were based on the analysis expressed by the community outreach task force as well. we who practice at st. louis -- will vastly improve the health care resources for necessary inpatient care and in addition it will facilitate full access to our patients for the service s of the entire cpmc system of care. for these reasons, the medical executive committee of st. lukes strongly supports the plans to rebuild cpmc. thank you. >> good evening president tierney and president olague and commissioners of health and planning commission. i'm the chief administrative officer at st. luke's campus. i've had 15 years in health care and was at san mateo medical center. the mission of st. lukes and

cpmc is close to my heart and so i'm committed to the viability of the organization. who do we serve? you have heard from many tonight whom we serve. we serve the patients, the child that presents with a fever in our emergency room to the a couple who would like to have an alternative birthing method to a person who has had a stroke. these are the people we serve. who serves them? who provides the care? our physicians and staff are astounding. historically there was not a lot of investing in the infrastructure, the facilities and the equipment of st. luke's. the partnership ensures that type of investment. commissioner, you'll be pleased to hear we had two very generous donations. as well, we are at a critical part over the integral fabric of a system-wide system of care.

as you heard from the doctor, we had growth in our orthopedic area with a unique partnership between ucsf and san francisco general hospital. there were nine hired to maintain and sustain health care as well as an o.b. and specialty services that dr. browner mentioned are also expanded in our area and future growth, we have a fuel service community hospital now and we will continue to have one. there will be an increased capacity in the e.r., labor and derivativery. -- delivery. thank you for your consideration. >> thank you, president tierney, president olague and members of

the health and planning commissions. my name is -- -- and i have worked at cpmc as a residential care steapt for nine years. i am a member of a union and a -- i have spent most of my life doing patient care. you can say that it is my calling. i learned how to do this work when i was 17 years old. and as an orphan in the philippines. through this work, i have been blessed to be able to earn a living for myself and to raise my jounger sister. the care takes a lot of tenderness for patients with alzheimers disease. our patients require our utmost respect.

at the current alzheimer's unit, we do our best to provide that. however it is difficult for us at the current hospital. it does not have proper facilities. we cannot use outdated equipment. we can care for our patients with the dignity that they deserve. i encourage you to support the project so that we can have proper facility to care for the patients in the alds himers unit and -- alzheimer's unit. the dignity that they deserve. security and safety -- that is good for us all of us. and by the way, cpmc in our community we have a patient -- two patients that are --

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> >> i'm sorry if i destroyed your name. cheryl dawson. sylvia rosenios. tom tobin, followed by derek nordel. >> hello, commissioners. my name is -- the lead administrator at the pacific campus and i'm also a registered nurse. in interest of time i'm going to be here all night and wait for you, if you have any questions, i'm happy to answer any questions. thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening president tierney. i'm caroline. i'm reading for cheryl dawson who had to leave early.

i'm cheryl dawson. the re-entry program has been working with california pacific medical center to educate incarcerate women about breast health and breast cancer. cpmc's strongest message to our incarcerated women is that breast cancer undetectived will reduce women to memories of what could have been. we are excited in the sheriff's department that cpmc has extended its commitment to providing breast health to uninsured and undeserved women in our jail. as you all know, cancer does not discriminate by population, ethnicity or zip code. cpmc's program to our incarcerated women has included free screening, free surgery,

free radiation, free chemotherapy and free transportation to and from services. i am remembering at this time an article in the san francisco chronicle dated january 3, 2011. the headline of this article read "hospital takes breast cancer outreach to county jail." this story relays the powerful and innovative approach that cpmc has taken to reach women who are unded -- underserved, uninsured and many times invisible. while it is true that we do have a mini medical clinic within our jail, we have not had a -- of this type. >> thank you. >> i thank you for your time. >> holly weisong. william hester.

fran taylor. nola ong. >> good evening. my name is sylvia. i have been a registered nurse at st. luke's campus for almost 24 years. my current position is as manager of the day beets center. i was raised in bernal heights and attended st. paul's high school. i attended san francisco state university's school of nursing and i currently live in the mission district. my history with st. luke's began long before i worked there. when i was 8 years old my mother had surgery and i remember climbing up the building stairs which are now closed becauser in not a.d.a. accessible. my three children were born at st. lukes and they have served as volunteers over the years at the hospital. i began my career as a staff nurse in the surgical unit on

the ninth floor. i worked the knight shift and i remember the many aftershocks where all the nurses and i were afraid when the building swayed from side to side. we were afraid that we would have to evacuate the patients in fear that we could not get them all out in time. since 1995 i worked as a certified diabetes educator and because of the prevalence of diabetes in our surrotundaing neighborhoods is very high, especially in the latino and african american community, many of our patients have socioeconomic issues and they rely on us to nave gate through the system. the -- navigate through the system. the billing where i work, we do not have air or heat when we plug in space heaters, we have to coordinate with the other workers so that our power doesn't go out.

so it is a very difficult situation to be in. but despite all of these challenges, my staff and i are able to provide excellent quality care and continue to be recognized by the day beets association. sorry. please rebuild the hospital. >> thank you. presidents tierney and olague. commissioners in. my name is tom tobin. i'm here to ask you to improve the city's ability to provide critical medical services following earthquakes. from 1985-1995 i was executive director of the seismic safety commission. i drafted and advocated a bill in 1953, a measure that reare requires acute care hospitals to -- medical facilities that fail

critical standards. the hospital -- the seismic safety act became law after the 1971 san fernando earthquake. 52 of the 65 deaths were in hospitals. today hospital fatilts in san francisco are no better -- facilities in san francisco are no better than in 1971. hospital buildings constructed after 1973 performed well but those built earlier did not. about 1,000 patients were evacuated from damaged hospitals. it took years and years to replace those damaged facilities. as it stands, patience in san francisco hospitals could die and san franciscans would remain untreated because the hospitals cannot function and some of those will die. it will take years and years to

replace. the city needs new hospital buildings for post earthquake capacity. we need these building as soon as possible. tonight you have the ability to expedite solutions to this looming tragedy. new facilities are needed as soon as possible. the project that i managed estimates between 400 and 3,500 san franciscans will need medical care in hospitals following a major earthquake striking this city. we are living on borrowed time. thank you. >> the next speakers, thomas simpson, sue hester and eric brooks. >> hi, there. i represent -- and i'm here to speak on behalf of eric hester who just had to leave because his kids are crying at home. they are calling for daddy. i work at cpmc hospital as a hospital attendant. i'm a member and i'm here to

support the project because it would provide better care access to community. at the current surgical facility, we are limited in our abilities to provide quality surgical procedures because the operating room is outdated. we constantly use newer and more high-tech equipment that require extra power. some of our eye surgeries require special outlets for lasers we use during procedure. out of 10 operating rooms, we currently use only two. that can provide the necessary power for the lasers. this limits the number of procedures and prevents us from providing the best health care for our patients. the new facility would be state of the art so we could provide the best care possible. i hope the planning commission will afford this new project. >> my name is noa ong.

i'm speaking in favor to have project. my 91-year-old mother jenny was a patient at cal pacific medical center. if the ambulance was 10 minutes later she would have been dead. she has a language disability and they could not understand what the problem was but the doctors are smart and figured it out. she is a p with the help of the doctors and their professionalism and they took care of her and now she is stable and she recovered so i just want to say i hope you support rebuilding the project. thank you. >> thank you. >> wait for you to reset. >> good evening, commissioners. i'm eric brooks. i'm here representing the san francisco green party and the

local grassroots organization. our city, as you know, and in strong opposition to this plan, as it is currently before you. so what we need to talk about is the actual meeting the true meaning of earthquake safety and hospitals. we need to remember back first of all in the 1906 earthquake, that it was not the failure of buildings that was the issue. it was the failuror water systems and the failure of access to transportation, especially of our emergency vehicles. so you saw on the basis of earthquake safety, cpmc present to you their plan for how to give good service in san francisco for health care is to centralize in one large facility the hospital services for san francisco and they plan to downgrade facilities like st.

luke's and others. they will also be in competition with facilities like st. francis making it likely they will be downgraded as well. so imagine in the case of an earthquake that 80% of the people can't get to those wonderful new high-class services because they can't get through the street system to get to the hospital. that means what we really need is to make the cpmc cathedral help facility much smaller and make sure that all of the other ones are robust and so that we have an even spread across the city. this board of supervisors maneuvered them awhy from requiring this kind of thing. what you can do is you can make this project set the standard for citywide earthquake safe health care. thanks.

>> good evening madam and mr. ppt ad vice president. thank you very much for calling my name. [laughter] i'm thomas robert simpson. the director of an arts organization called afro solo. we focus primarily in the arts-related issues around the african-american community. we use our arts to deal with issues that are of importance to our community. one of those issues is health. and the idea of the health disparity that is oppressive lant in our community. we began with -- in 1999 by doing forums, performances, discussions around h.i.v./aids. as i learned more about the disparity, we ban to look at -- began to look at other issues such as cancer.

we decided to have health fairs with the idea of providing people in our community, primarily the western edition, information, access and screenings with the idea that if we found people that had issues, they would know where to go take care of them but hopefully have people in those situations that did not have a problem. so if a crisis occurred they would know where to go. i'm very happy to say that one of our significant community partners has been cpmc. they have been with us for the last five years helping wherever they could or as the need arose. and in our community, needs are quite, quite -- we are quite needy medically. i said that we work pro-primarily within the african-american community but we don't discriminate. we pair with another organization to do backpacks as well as screenings right before

school starts. this past year we saw 1,500 people in about two hours. we're planning to expand that service this coming year. a big hospital is a big hospital. what's important to me as is most people are the people who we associate with that. one of the persons that has been very important is dr. carolyn dyson who is here for you because of her work with health in the african-american community, i think of a woman by the name of janet who was about 48 years old, who was terribly afraid to go get a mammogram. she scheduled it several times but each time she came up with an education cushion not to do it and i introduced her to carolyn and through that association, after a lot of enticements she went and found something unusual. it scared her again. she went again and found that there was a false positive. through my association with

carol, through cpmc, i felt honored to nominate her for an award the kqed as an unsung hero in the african-american community. there were 40 people who were nominated and i'm very happy to say that she was one of the people who was chosen. as we move forward with the rebuild program, as people in our community just need help, it is really nice to know that there are really wonderful places that they can go to get help. i'm also really happy to hear that in terms of them surfing the core that the trend is -- and i'm hoping that the they will keep that trend moving in the upper direction so more and more and more people can be served. thank you very much. >> as you come forward, bernadette smith, ramon -- and cc