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The overall goal is to have a robust hospital and clinics that people want to use and really good medical practitioners and staff want to work there. We need those that truly have choices (those that self-pay or have good insurance and are mobile) to use Hazel Hawkins Hospital more. That offsets much lower margin business or even losses from the Medicare and Medi-Cal folks who we want to provide the best care to. Remember, we will all be there soon enough! It also helps defray the costs of providing the care to the poor and indigent paid for by our tax dollars.
The path to that robust Hazel Hawkins Hospital is:
- Withdrawal from the bankruptcy process to stop wasting money on expensive attorneys and advisors.
- Dismantle the current power structure. There is something weird going on at Hazel Hawkins Hospital, including that no one seems to be able to answer what happened. In fact, it has been quite impossible to get any credible answers. It provides a service that no other institution can perform so we need to know what went on so we can prevent it from happening again. We need transparency and the current board and administration are not providing it.
- Reassemble the power structure into a functional system where improvement is expected, continuously measured, celebrated when achieved, and extra attention paid to areas that are not.
- Develop the ideas in the business plan that the experts came up with, and put them into action.
- Get more insurance plans accepted at Hazel Hawkins Hospital so more insured can use it.
- Reckon with the bargaining units, most of all the nurses. They have been largely hand-in-hand in helping to ferret out what issues and keeping our hospital open and owned by us. But they, like other rank and file, have had their contracts abrogated while Hazel Hawkins Hospital remains in bankruptcy court limbo. Nurses are the blood of the hospital, having the most patient contact as they carry out the orders of the physicians. We need to get to the table with them and figure out what to do going forward so that they feel taken care of and the hospital can operate profitably.
- Improve the rural clinics so that more residents use them. These clinics are literally where any resident can receive general medical care; they are like a doctor or other medical practitioners’ office. But they are dark and dingy and not enough people know about them.
- Repair the relationship between the Community Health Foundation and Hazel Hawkins Hospital. The Community Health Foundation is a non-profit that provides medical care to lower-income residents. It has the choice between referring patients to Hazel Hawkins Hospital or to other hospitals in other counties. Apparently, there is some animosity or other friction between the two institutions that causes patient referrals to not be sent to HHH. This is a revenue loss to Hazel Hawkins Hospital and should be fixed.
Running any public institution is difficult, especially in San Benito County because of the nuances of Prop 13 and being a bedroom community where so many residents leave every day to work elsewhere. They sleep here, but many do not have enough energy after their commutes to fully engage.
But somehow we manage to police our communities, dispatch paramedics and put out fires, educate our children, and deliver all the other services we do using the resources that we have. I am in awe of the individuals who run our Sheriff’s Department, Jail, Hollister Police Department, Fire Department, Elections, Assessors Office, Tax Collectors Office, and schools, all on abnormally low budgets that they cannot control the revenue side of. Unfortunately, our hospital has not been a part of that. Fortunately, though, Hazel Hawkins Hospital is one government entity that can control its revenues, because it provides service for fees! The more and better services it performs, the more revenues it has.
A Hollister resident that can have the same medical procedure done at Hazel Hawkins Hospital at the same quality in the Bay Area will more than likely choose here. It is simply more convenient to get to our hospital in the morning and a short drive to home in the afternoon to convalesce.
This is the most valuable public asset in San Benito County by far with its $160 million in revenues, over 600 employees, and a $275-$300 million replacement cost.
The more attention we pay to it, the better hospital we will have. Let’s plan on it. Vote No on Measure X.
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