Subject: Public Testimony: December 23 LHH-JCC Meeting
Date:      Sun, 02 Jan 2005 19:09:54 -0800
From:     Patrick Monette-Shaw <pmonette-shaw@earthlink.net>
To:          Michele Olson <michele.olson@dph.sf.ca.us>

January 2, 2005

Michele Olson
Executive Secretary to the health Commission
101 Grove Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Dear Ms. Olson,

Below, and attached in Word format to make your job easier, please find my public testimony presented at the December 23
meeting of the LHH Joint Conference Committee.

I apologize for the delay in submitting my testimony; due to the intervening holidays, I expect you will nonetheless — and in the
spirit of the holidays — include my testimony in the published minutes of the December 23 meeting.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Patrick Monette-Shaw

---

Public Testimony of Patrick Monette-Shaw
December 23, 2004

Agenda Item 3: Executive Administrator's Report (150 words)

On December 16, John Kanaley, LHH's Executive Administrator, addressed neighborhood associations during a Town Hall meeting co-sponsored by the Committee to Save LHH; he baldly asserted LHH's mission was not changing. Just seven days later, today Mr. Kanaley now tells you that a change to LHH's mission and vision statement was unanimously approved by the entire LHH Executive Committee during a retreat held on either November 23 or December 9, and that change involves removing the phrase "long term care" from LHH's mission statement. It is patently obvious that use of the new buzzword "diverse" to refer to LHH's patient mix is designed to obscure from the public that the changing demographics of LHH has been artificially engineered in order to get DPH out of the business of providing long-term care to San Francisco's frail, elderly population. Dropping long-term care from LHH's mission statement is a huge, not insignificant, change.

Agenda Item 5: Operations Report (150 words)

LHH's Chief Operating Officer, Robert Christmas, just indicated LHH isn't allowed to buy furniture, fixture, and equipment (FFE) for the LHH replacement facility until 2007. Why is it then, that earlier Department of Public Health documents indicated that the LHH Replacement Project Manager, Michael Lane, had been asked to submit annual estimates between now and 2007 describing FFE expenditures that should be included in DPH's annual budget submissions? Which is it: That Lane is expected to estimate FFE expenses to procure in budget cycle before the replacement facility opens, or that you can't procure FFE until 2007?

Incidentally, Ms. Austin just noted that a packet containing information regarding the parking fees being imposed on LHH staff to be conducted in a lottery January 4 was delivered today, but she failed to note that staff were being given less than four-working-days notice to return an application to participate in the lottery.

Agenda Item 6: Clinical Care Report (150 words)

The Targeted Case Management (TCM) program has discharged an abysmal total of five residents since implementation at great expense; reportedly, one resident went AWOL and a second discharge was sent out-of-country, which is far worse than being sent out-of-county. The TCM team cannot take credit for AWOL's, because AWOL's are hardly planned discharges. The TCM program's assertion that someone given a one-way plane ticket to a foreign country was "re-integrated" into a San Francisco community is laughable, at best. The TCM statistics need to be more honestly reported.

As for news that a change to LHH's admission policy was unanimously accepted by the Medical Staff, Medical Executive Committee, and the hospitalwide Executive Committee on December 21, it appears a policy bait-and-switch occurred, giving Dr. Katz the improper authority he had sought all along to determine admissions to LHH, paving the way for "social rehabilitation" and "behavioral health" programming at LHH.


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