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 rebecca rolf. >> good evening. sue hester. 35 years ago, i was -- i sat on west bay health system's agency board. on the long-term planning committee. we were struggling with some of the same issues, though they are much worse today. in terms of access to care, distribution of health care services, we had a lot more hospitals and they were much better distributed than we do now. the is that you mr. brooks

brought up is a real one. in an earthquake, access to care, it is not so much building collapse that is the immediate problem. it is people getting access geographically over a mountain to hospitals and we are now concentrating them exclusive ply in a small area of the city. and cpmc is a large part of that decision because they have concentrated their facilities. i want to talk about something no one is talking about. the mayor's office took it off the table. this is a project that is being built intentionally. it is moving intentionally to one of the most congested transit issue areas of the city, an area the city knows needs massive transit, geary rail and van ness rail and that has been taken off the table and this project should be required to --

they are tunneling under van ness. it is a state highway. it is a very critical place and yet they are intentionally banning other sites that are not as bad transit-wise putting people into one very intense -- area that will put over capacity already congested intersections at van mess in and market. van ness and geary and van ness and post. it is an intentional act in vie ligse of ceqa. you have to pay a-- violation of ceqa. you have to pay attention to it. fument >> good evening. i'm bernadette smith. i am also a registered nurse. in the interest of time, i'll hold my remarks and be here to answer any questions that you might have.

>> thank you very much. >> [speaking spanish] >> good evening, honorable commissioners. my name is ramon. i'm an employee of cpmc. for over 12 years. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about this because we need to construct a hospital and rebuild st. luke's. >> [speaking spanish]

>> i also work and am committed to my job. >> [speaking spanish] >> my job as a housekeeper is to guarantee that the patients have a comfortable and clean place to get well and that their families can focus on them and not on the distractions that sometimes happen in old hospitals. >> [speaking spanish] >> my job as a pharmaceutical technician is to ensure that the medicines that patients need are delivered correctly and timely.

>> [speaking spanish] >> i think that the best way to serve the patients in the recovery is to keep a clean and comfortable environment. >> [speaking spanish] >> i also believe that the best way to serve the patients in their recovery is to have the equipment and builds that are more modern to give the care to the patients that need it. >> [speaking spanish] >> it will give the patients of san francisco a place to recover in comfort. >> [speaking spanish] >> cathedral hill will give the

patients of san francisco a modern hospital that will give the best care. >> [speaking spanish] >> for the sake of the patients that i have seen and the ones that i will see in the future, i implore the commissioners to recommend cathedral hill. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> and the next speakers will be olivia fay, nick, camellia and -- >> good evening, commissioners. i really thank you for being here tonight. i know it is a late night. my name is rebecca rolf. i'm here to speak on behalf of cpmc. it has been a long night. we've heard a lot of testimony. a lot of compelling stories. and i need to tell you i'm not a medical expert, nor am i a planning expert.

but have i been struck by two things. one of them is cpmc's willingness to invest in san francisco and continue to build a state of the art medical facilities to serve our citizens and the second is cpmc's investment in the communities that make up san francisco. i will say that cpmc has made a deep investment in the center and in the center's ability to serve the community. i want to give you just a couple of examples of that. one of our board members is paula, who is cpmc's manager of community relations. she is one of our hardest working board members. she works practically full time at the center as a second job, third job, i guess she is a single parent as well. financial contributions. i know they have significantly -- many other medical organizations and medical services for the community including organizations that, you know, provide critical safety net services to w-