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Health & Fitness

Community Organizing Can Save San Leandro Hospital

Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that activism was less costly and more effective than legal action. Let's follow his example to beat Sutter Health.

This might be a good time for the campaign to save San Leandro Hospital to a invest into community organizing since the legal "conflict of interest" case came up short with the court siding with Sutter.

A small fraction of what the Eden Township Health Care District spent on legal fees would have gone a long way in organizing and mobilizing the community. They spent well over $2 million in attorney fees. The city also joined in the court case. The unions, especially CNA, and the local elected officials who supported the helath care worker/community position put  almost all their resource eggs into the legal basket as well.

Legal action is ususally very expensive yet, more often than not, less than  fruitful in the area of social justice. Non other than Martin Luther King argued that too much is spent on legal fees and too little on activating citizens.

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In Gerald Rosenberg's "The Hollow Hope:Can Courts Bring About Social Justice?" he quotes King extensively on this matter. King said "whenever it is possible we want to avoid the courts in the integration struggle (court cases are ) unsuitable to the civil rights struggle . . . that to accumulate resources for legal actions imposes hardships on the already overburdened."

King believed that litigation was an elitist strategy where "the ordinary Negro was a passive spectator"and "his energies were unemployed." In a speech at a NAACP convention he argued that "only when the people themselves begin to act are the rights on paper given life blood" refering to the famous but toothless Brown vs. Board of Education court decision which lay in political limbo for almost a decade until the activity of the Civil Rights movement brought it to life.

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Locally the Eden Board, for a fraction of what was spent on legal fees, could set up a comprehensive communication system over the Internet as well as for those without online service with robo call software. For less than two percent of the legal fees they could be communicating with every family in the district at least once a month. For a little more money they could employ a few community organizers.

The unions could also step up the pressure. CNA faces problems with Sutter in nine Bay Area communities and many nurses believe Sutter is out to destroy collective bargaining at their hospitals. CNA community organizers could focus on two main tasks:

  • a heath care precinct network yo train nurses, other health care workers and community members concerned with health care reform;
  • and organizing Senior Citizens who are as serious about this issue locally as a heart attack.

The elected officials who are sympathetic also have fairly large staffs. Some staff members could spend one week a month developing their community organizing skills . They could spend a week a month knocking on doors, talking about the elected official's legislative agenda and setting up house meetings to highlight the hospital and other pressing issues.These skills will serve the legislative aides well in the future and could energize many of our citizens.

Sutter in my opinion has been a nightmare for many throughout Northern California. This is also true of other so called "charitable hospitals" thoughout the country often applying the same mode of operation as Sutter. Some of their worst practices include:

Health care "redlinning," moving from poorer communities to wealtheir ones, profiting from being a non-profit and threatening health safety for thousands and job security for nurses and doctors alike.

Charging uninsured patients double what insured patients pay. A major settlement against Sutter can be Googled at "Sutter Uninsured Case" where horror story after horror story are detailed.

Using the media to prop up a phony image of the company at places like KQED and other media outlets leaving people to believe that they are putting the community first instead of their expansionist gameplan.

Their board rubber stamps CEO Patrick Fry's huge $3 million-plus salary in exchange for plum six-figure board positions, often only requiring attendence in bi-monthly meetings . This is the same salary scam practiced by much of corporate America which, in my opinion, is our country's biggest Ponzi scheme, making the likes of Illinois' Rod Blagojevich seem like a small fry.

The community and health care workers could easily target both KQED and the Sutter Board for a small fraction of the legal fees expended. Few of KQED's members would support Sutter's uninsured and redlinning policies. The legal eagles will always soar over our community and country  and the unions will always spend most of their resources on legal fees, clever political consultants and political contributions.

But a few crumbs spent on community organizing would give them a lot more bang for their buck. Sutter is no pushover but then again Martin Luther King changed America not through the courts but through employing peoples' energies.

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