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Supervisors press Sutter/CPMC on St. Luke’s merger, charity care and seismic compliance as community demands written guarantees
Summary
At a public hearing, supervisors and community members pressed Sutter/CPMC and St. Luke's Hospital about charity care, potential service closures, seismic retrofit timelines under SB 1953, and requested written assurances. CPMC said it will keep St. Luke's as an independently licensed campus while consolidating administration to sustain clinical services.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' Government Audit & Oversight Committee held a lengthy Sept. 11 hearing focused on the proposed affiliation of St. Luke's Hospital with California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC)/Sutter Health and on the hospital’s compliance with state seismic safety deadlines.
Chair Supervisor Tom Ammiano opened the discussion by noting the attorney general’s 60‑day review of the merger and asking CPMC representatives to address how St. Luke's charity care, inpatient services and emergency capacity would be maintained once St. Luke's became a campus of CPMC. He also said the committee expects written responses to the questions raised at the hearing.
Dr. Brian Goodell, interim chief administrative officer at St. Luke's, said CPMC and St. Luke's follow a Sutter‑wide charity care policy and that St. Luke's and CPMC maintain a charity care practice up to 400% of the federal poverty level. Goodell said the merger plan is intended to consolidate administrative functions at CPMC while keeping St. Luke's clinical services open under an independent license so the hospital can continue to receive disproportionate share payments that support its financially vulnerable payer mix. He described roughly $33 million in annual support Sutter has been providing to sustain St. Luke's operations.
Mitch Katz, director of the Department of Public Health, told the committee St. Luke's occupies a critical geographic position: together with San Francisco General it serves the city’s Southeast side and is a high‑volume ambulance destination for that area. Katz and community witnesses said reductions in local acute care capacity would increase pressure on San Francisco General and on ambulance services.
Community speakers and hospital employees urged written, binding guarantees from Sutter/CPMC that St. Luke's would maintain clinical services, charity care levels and community input on major changes. Public comment included accounts from hospital staff alleging recent closures (pharmacy), staff reductions and service changes that have already affected care and employment. Several speakers urged extending the merger evaluation window beyond three years and requested contingency planning in case St. Luke's reduces acute services.
Supervisors noted the hospital must meet SB 1953 seismic standards and that some retrofit deadlines are imminent; Adam Vander Water of the Office of the Legislative Analyst summarized seismic deadlines and said St. Luke's had filed compliance plans and could seek extensions to 2013 in some cases. The committee also discussed potential impacts on disproportionate share funds if St. Luke's reporting were combined with other campuses.
At the conclusion of the St. Luke's discussion, Supervisor Ammiano moved that Sutter/CPMC and St. Luke's provide written answers to the committee's questions and that the city request a written guarantee that Sutter Health will not change services at St. Luke’s without an appropriate public process and input from community, labor and the Department of Public Health. The committee continued the item to the call of the chair to allow further public input and to request the written materials.
The committee did not record a roll‑call vote on the requested guarantee in the hearing transcript; supervisors emphasized they would follow up and prepare a separate resolution to transmit city policy to the attorney general.
