st. my brother had died at st. luke's five months ago due to the medical services that could not provide him. i cannot see building another hospital and not being able to make st. luke's have more medical equipment and what not in order to help the community. i have been in that area for about 30 years. i just can't see that building this hospital in that area for any reason at all. thank you. president tierney: thank you. we are sorry for your loss. >> thank you, commissioners. my name is penny straud. i am with a local consulting firm that has been planning for a healthcare organizations throughout northern california since 1978. we have worked with many of the hospitals in san francisco, as well as northern california. we worked with cpmc for many years in the analysis of patience and communities, including development of the new citywide plan. although this plan is exempt from the new master planning process, i am confident that if you had a plan today, you would approve it. cpmc's pr

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.

she has received all of our care at st. luke's. she prefers staying at st. luke's. i also care from an immigrant from mexico who arrived to us with uncontrolled diabetes. much of his vision gone and after multiple interventions, he has almost total return of his vision and control of his diabetes. he deserves a state of the art faspiment our hospital is old and lacks many futures. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hi. good evening. i know i'm going to make this as short and sweet as i can. i'm carol williams. i'm a respiratory therapist. the bulk of that time was at stanford university where i actually helped build that hospital as well. i was part of opening the doors so currently i'm a respiratory supervisor at st. luke's. my children were born at the cal campus and lived three blocks awhy from the cal campus but now time at st. luke's. that was actually my very first clinic cal experience was at st. luke's. we took care of a juvenile diabetic mother who was 17 and was 27 weeks pregnant and she was coding off and on. so anyway my daughter now is a nurse at the cal ca

since i have been working at st. luke's, our patients have encountered many problems because of the age of the building. last month, the boiler and broke for a week. there was no way to wash the dishes. the water would not circulate. we had to give thermal blankets and portable water heaters to get through the cold winter nights. patients had to be moved from their rooms. the worst time was when the fourth floor had a fish smell. no one in our community should have to suffer in those conditions. and our patients deserve better than this. a new facility will benefit this community. people will be happy to come here and now they will be comfortable and cared for. the floor on the new hospital will not require waxing. patients will not have to breathe in the chemicals anymore. cpmc is proposing to rebuild this hospital. i support the new hospital proposal because it will make the care we give those patients in this community much better. thank you. president tierney: [names are read] >> good evening, commissioners. terr

currently, st. luke's hospital represents a segregated form of health care and feels like a third world country when you walk through the halls. we take care of people struggling with drug addictions, alcoholics, and people overwhelmed with psychological issues. there are no resources for these patients. consequently, there are limited resources for staff to care for them. we do our best, but many times it does not feel like it is working. i still love with a specialty service located at st. luke's hospital, would have a better player mixed to provide better care for all our patience. it just seems fair to me. i want to say she has been a wonderful advocate as a nurse and has come under fire for speaking out at hearings like this time and time again. it is amazing that she continues to do it despite the harassment she experiences. >> our next speakers are [names] please all three come up to the side. >> good evening, commissioners. i have been a cpmc employee for over 30 years. i am a member of the

st. anthony's kitchen and dining facilities with a new updated facility and construct 90 new affordable housing units for seniors, including homeless seniors. project includes philanthropic service above the ground floor, including clothing exchange service. the department has received seven letters of support, primarily from other social service providers. an extensive outreach effort was conducted with over 25 community meetings since 2007. the department is not aware of opposition to the project. the department recommends the commission approve the project, as the project will provide 90 new housing units for variable income and homeless seniors. the project is an important philanthropic use, providing essential social services to traditionally underserved persons in the city, and it advances the objectives and policies of the general plan and meet requirements of the planning code. i am available for questions. thank you very much. commissioner olague: thank you. project sponsor? >> g

st. louis campus will not be we have committed two commitments. one is to maintain our 36 sickbed that the babies campus. the second is to either find, build, or cobuild 62 other beds without taking them from pre- existing places in the community. that is a commitment we will keep. we spoke about how we would replace lost beds. we are working with other hospitals. all ceo's share this problem to, with a solution. we will honor this commitment. we were asked to commit to operate st. luke's for 20 years as a community hospital. it is our intention to operate all of our facilities in perpetuity. we were asked to implement the blue ribbon panel recommendations about the rebuild of an acute-care facility and we agreed to do that. the health board has committed $250 million to contract -- to construct that hospital. the new hospital will include all of the services that the blue ribbon panel recommended the health commissioner specifically called out our community partnerships. we have made com

st. augustine, lou he's merillac, katherine mccauley, all people who have founded religious orders or congregations and joining their ranks is farther veto perown. thank you for being here today. >> thank you. >> and tell us about the religious order and tell us about your path and a brief thing about father veto perown. >> okay. well from early on, tom, i've had a call to prayer. but it wasn't until i had a back injury when i was 18 years old, i was playing football, and that back injury took away all of my athletic talents. and so i had to search -- or i forced to kind of move inside and find god. >> and if we could borrow on this st. ignatius period. that's where the 30 days came from. >> he also was injured and had to -- and that was when he also came to search for god. so that time was very significant. i remember at the time, i became very depressed and thought this was terrible, because i'd lost everything that i thought was so important for my life, which was athletic talent. but

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 an

st. luke and concentrate specialty services at cathedral hill. whether than improving patient outcomes, this would take away convenient accessibility from patients who lived in the southeastern part of san francisco. this would cause a delay in getting to the medical facility and potentially poor outcomes. cpmc's analysts claim looking specialty services in one place improves patient outcomes, but this is unclear. for example, as a labor and delivery nurse it is extremely rare to have a liver patient who has cancer. the oncology physician would be readily available to come to our facility for" and management. prioritizing this rare occurrence over many patients' access to care does not make sense. i propose that st. luke's remain a full-service hospital, with expansion to include some specialty services, and that the grand plan for cathedral hill be downsized. thank you for your time and consideration. >> good evening. i want to read a statement from mary, who had to leave because she wor

st. luke's hospital for the past 11 years. i last spoke to the help commission three years ago, in strong opposition to the proposed closure of our beloved hospital. i am now happy to have the opportunity to return and support the cpmc plans to rebuild. i represent my fellow physicians and the nurses and therapists who have the privilege of caring for children every day. the dedication and passion that we brought to the save st. luke's effort continues. morale is high as we look to the future. we have been working closely with the architects and administrators to ensure that the communities we serve a continue have -- continue to have access to medical care through the rebuilding process. this is a state of the art facility where we can provide quality care. the will be separate child- friendly rooms for families, electronic medical records, and dedicated laboratory and radiation services. these advances will help us see more patients more efficiently. the labor and delivery and postpartu

st. francis hospital, located in the tenderloin, serves significantly more charity care, about 4% of that net patient revenue is returned in charity care. while they may make an example of their increased dollar amount of charity care, the percentage of net patient revenue is not enough. the tenderloin has the low- income neighborhood where many people are uninsured and depend on charity care. this number is unacceptable. they have a greater capacity to provide more charity care. lastly, these are patient discharge members of cpmc from their institutional master plan in 2007. this is the latest data we could find. a highlight the neighborhoods are the tenderloin and bayview, where the health care needs are the highest. combined, these neighborhoods, these patients were seen less at cpmc than patients from other areas. already, cpmc does not provide access to our community in their hospitals. what good is a hospital in our neighborhood if it is not going to provide services to our people?

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instead of only keeping me at st. luke's as a diabetes eaktr and using my experience there -- educator, using my experience there, i'm allowed, my expertise is sent out into the community instead of just keeping it at st. luke's. diabetes is a horrible disease. of course it is worse in areas, as we all know, in areas where there is less financial resources and we also foe what works to control die -- know what works to control die sbeets lacking in those communities -- buy beets is -- diabetes is lacking in those communities. i'm so pleased to ask you to support. >> thank you. >> thank you presidents tierney and olague. members of the health commission. thank you for your attention tonight. it is a late evening. i'm a physician at st. luke's. i started working at an ob/gyn at the hospital. you might ask why would somebody join the staff of a hospital that is battle weary and has many failing equipments and being in a recession, serving poor people and i really can't say anything other than how could you not work there

st. luke's hospital. we are not here to tell cpmc how to work with community, but rather to say that we appreciate that cpmc knocked on our door when we first moved in to bayview hunters point and asked how they could assist in providing services directly to the bayview child health center, the only child facility in the bayview hunters point operated by cpmc. we are here again to say thank- you to cpmc. they are reaching out to low- income working people. we are here to support their rebuild plants. thank you very much and good evening. [applause] president olague: thank you. michael smithwick, followed by jon daniel. >> i am dr. richard gibbs. with my wife dr. krishna gibbs, we founded and still administrate the san francisco free clinic. when we opened 16 years ago, we put out the call to the medical community for a project that would only serve people with no health insurance of any kind. we got an overwhelming response. over 155 positions, doctors, and their staff offered to help pro

st. luke's, staff leadership positions, including chair of anesthesia, chief of the medical staff, and medical director of the st. luke's campus. as an emissary envoys of the physicians of saint luke, i wish to acknowledge and thank cpmc and the city of san francisco for saving some lives. the blue-ribbon panel achieve by and from all interested parties, medical, political, community, and a remarkable result. over the last two years, the department chairs have been working with architects and planners on our new facility. the medical staff from a supports the proposed plans. as this plan has crystallized, we see it does what it was supposed to do. it preserves critical service lines to a state of the art facility through tertiary distribution of services. st. luke's can access and a bill itself of incredible support from the other campuses, which is already happening. lastly, while maintaining critical inpatient service lines, it also includes a robust plan for the direction medicine is t

cpmc identified a set of zip codes, the primary st. luke's service area, that generates 85% of st. luke's discharges. you see a plan of these hospitals that is explicit segregation of patients based on ability to pay. i would think we would be beyond an argument about whether we believe in segregation. the plan is come a 10% private insurance. the justifies the hospital based on current utilization. 65% private insurance to other campuses, 10% medi-cal. these are people from around the central city in the southeast going to st. luke's. if people from the southeast go to cathedral hill. that does not make sense. 40% of the emergency room cities -- visits come from around the st. luke's area. what happens there puts a burden on sf general hospital. the approach we're taking to davies we believe should be the approach to st. luke's. it works when there is a clinical anchor to generate investment. they are not designed as a permanent charity write-off. davies has a community-serving function and an anchor of clinical services. we believe that should be the approach to st. luke's, where

we have provided all over st. luke's and i want to give you three examples of why it is a serious problem. first, the building is not equipped to from vide access to care. if you have -- to provide access to care. if you have never been inside st. luke's, it is an old, old building. it does not work like a modern hospital. imag for the patient and finding out that the outlet in front of you does not work. it doesn't provide services our community relies on. our community needs access to emergency. our same day care. the e.r. is almost always overcrowded. the new location will expand services like the e.r. that the community actually uses. and third. >> thank you very much. >> is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> as we heard earlier, this is the third of several hearings that the health commissioners had and our appropriate action will be to refer this to our planning committee and work with the planning commission to come up with specific items for the development plan

happy st. patrick's day. >>> 8:00 on a thursday morning. the 17th day of march, 2011. that makes it st. patrick's day. yes, that is the fountain -- i believe that is on the south lawn of the white house, and they have dyed that baby green in honor of the occasion. the president himself out there with food coloring this morning. probably not. out on the plaza, look at the size of the crowd that has gathered here in rockefeller plaza. lots of green, lots of smiles. lots of people headed to the parade in just a little while. i'm matt lauer along with suzanna gulthry while meredith is on assignment in london. it's always one of the most subdued crowds. >> absolutely. >> coming up, we'll talk about saving a lot of money on clothing, we have america's cheapist family back. they were given a task of coming up with two outfits for 50 bucks. we'll find out how they did. >> four women who dated the same man and were conned by him. they took matters into their own hands. they filmed the confrontation with

st. it is st. patrick's day, thursday, march 17th. "today in the bay." >>> and good morning, everybody. thanks for joining us. time now, straight up 6:00. i'm brent cannon. >> and i'm laura garcia can knop. check the forecast with christina. >> good morning to you. happy st. patrick's day of course. a chilly day. the good news, luck the irish is with us and we'll see a pretty nice day today. a dry day after four consecutive days of rainfall in the bay area. today looks pretty good. now, as we head through tomorrow, a really potent storm is on the way. it is a winter storm as we transition into spring over the weekend. so i have some major news to report as we head throughout the morning. but for today, before you head out the front door, if you're leaving now, grab a jacket. maybe something you can peel off later. temperatures end up in the 60s, but you can leave the umbrella at home. how the roadways are fairing. >> a little gold, not the end of the rainbow, through livermore. a new acci

st. luke's will look like. we recognize the need to control rising health care costs, consolidation of two of our campuses will help us do that by reducing duplication of expensive equipment, having a more energy-efficient building, reducing administrative function. we would like to optimize the distribution of care throughout san francisco and the integrated delivery system. we would like to quote of the former -- and this will not exist in the city because there are not enough specialists and to be very good at something, you have to do a lot of it. here is our construction schedule. you will note that it has us starting in 2011 with completion of the campus which is a slightly easier campus to build. that will enable us to be in compliance with the current law. i know the whole commissioners will remember this. i would like to review these because i think we have made substantial progress. we promise to increase our charity care and the amount of care we provide for medi-cal patients.

st. patrick's day. it's a thursday. back to you. >> thanks, mike. >>> we do have new details, in fact, some of them just changing from japan this morning, where military helicopters are now being pulled away from the damaged nuclear reactor in japan. just a few hours after those same chopper, used combat-style tactics trying to contain the radiation. two chinook helicopters have been dumping at least four loads of seawater on to the damaged reactor, as you see here. those helicopters are now grounded as experts evaluate if the operation was successful. there are conflicting reports on the conditions at the plant. outside experts say the dumping of this water means there's no cooling water left at the plant. the japanese officials deny that claim. plant operators are racing now to try to finish a new power line as well that could restore the original cooling system in an attempt to try to slow the nuclear reactor crisis and prevent a meltdown. >>> also new this morning, the obama administration is orderi

the st. patrick's day events in the bay area. >>> and the stock market just opened about 10 minutes ago. let's take a quick peek at some of the early numbers thus far. and the luck of the irish, everything is green so far. the dow up 128. we'll have an update from jason brooks with kcbs and cbsmoneywatch.com. >>> we are looking for the pot o' gold around the bay area in weather, we may find it in parts of the bay area, but we have some showers trying to sneak into the north bay. right now you can see this band clipping parts of the north bay at this hour. embedded in the system we have seen a couple of lightning strikes, nothing over the last half hour or so but going to keep a close eye. just stay dry. east and south bay and central bay looking good. mostly clear to begin with temperatures much cooler than yesterday. 30s and 40s right now. by the afternoon, 50s and 60s. some sunshine, and a mix of sun and clouds, chance of showers north. otherwise partly cloudy skies, watch out for that high

and the st. luke motto was started with the a.c.m. and became part of our family practice residency program and then it was disengaged. what i'm saying is given the fact that we have a multitude of challenges how we're going to provide professional services in the city, it may be an opportunity to revisit some models which at least work a number of years ago but could be modified now given the fact that our academic health science centers are facing a number of mandates where we really have to work even more closely together and partner a do a lot of things in a sharing mode rather than a separate mode. you know, the days of building five recent cancers is no longer a reality. it's a matter of how we're going to integrate and provide the highest health care. and that's been the experience pertaining to the rebuild of cpmc. a lot of positive things have been undertaken. we look forward to positive outcomes again. but as i said, there is unique opportunities which i think we could really grasp because the rubber's going to hit the road

i am aware of the concerns about st. luke's. i want to address them head-on. i will tell you that in anticipation of the new hospital, and they are chomping at the bit of finally getting a new hospital, we have been working with them to expand their medical staffs, building a primary care network, helping them to expand their services, and when they of asked us to provide specialty coverage, we have. we have introduced coverage in oncology, herpetology, and others. we can monitor patients in the intensive care unit. we have been working on the quality of care at that facility. it is our intent to make services there for seniors of the community and particularly for women. in the future, of the saint looks campus will have greater capacity than it does today. there'll be an increase in available beds for acute care. a 50% increase in our ability to deliver children, 50% more emergency department space, and nearly tripling our capacity to do surgical procedures. we will have improved urgent care system at that campus as well. all of the roads will be private pat

can you tell us more about san francisco history here at the st. francis? >> sure. st. francis demonstrates well the evolution of elevated technology. and substantially damaged the 1906 earthquake and rebuilt in 1907 or 1908, and extend it again in 1913. then a new tower was added in 1932, so there is all sorts of elevator technology you can see at the st. francis that very much represents the building history of san francisco. >> i understand there is a really old elevator still operating here. >> that is right, the elevator installed in the 1913 expansion. we can go look at that. >> let's go take a look. here we are in a spectacular st. francis lobby. here is the clock. when people say "meet me at the clock in the st. francis." let's look at that elevator. >> ok, let's do it. >> here we are in the elevator installed as part of the expansion, and this is the way it was originally installed about 100 years ago. it has a manual switch just like elevators did back then, and it runs on dc power. this was from a time before elevators ran on ac power. >> when did they switch

between st.atrick's day the start of the ncaa tournament and a new episode of "jersey shore," america is now officially out of alcohol. st. patrick's day is a fun -- [ applause ] it's like a gay pride day for alcoholics. it's -- [ laughter ] you talk about great time. we had our annual mandatory staff sexual harassment meeting today. throughout which everyone was drunk and pinching each other. we have st. patrick's day tradition on this show. besides being told the different between want and unwanted touching. that is, i have an all-time favorite youtube video. you have probably seen it but i can't get enough of it. this is the story of the st. patrick's day miracle in mobile, alabama. >> curiosity leads to large crowds in mobile. many of you bring binoculars, camecorders, even camera phones. >> who else seen the leprechaun? say yeah! >> yeah! >> jimmy: why is that guy not more famous? he's better than the double rainbow guy, right? got a pot of gold in his teeth, for -- here's more. >> eye wit b

. >> point out st. luke's and you ignore your main prized campus. >> again, it is an outpatient clinic that is part of cpmc. again, the vast majority of the patients who come to have have don't go to doctors who work for cpmc. they go to doctors who admit to cpmc. if a patient comes to crp to our emergency room or is admitted to our hospital or has any service performed at our hospital, we take that medical and always have taken medical and always will take medical at all of our campuses. we're happy to spell it out in more detail with the health department. >> since the commissioners antonini and scalia have spoken i'm going to ask the commissioners to. >> yeah. i want to keep it short because i think there have been some items that have come up that i like to take back to the health commission and discuss it with the rest of the health commission. i appreciate excisioner in moore's pointing out the whole question of traffic in that area because very recently, the commission health commission was given