Major Hospital on San Francisco Border Threatened by Bankruptcy
Should Daly City’s hospital shutter at the hands of a hedge fund, nurses’ unions warn, it could create a regional health-care crisis that could drastically affect low-income patients and seniors.
Ever since Verity Health System filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 31, nurses at one of its six California hospitals, Seton Medical Center, have been anxious about the facility’s uncertain fate. San Franciscans have reason to be anxious, too: According to Verity, they make up about 14 percent of the patients who seek emergency care at the Daly City hospital. Overall, roughly 27,000 people in both San Francisco and northern San Mateo County each year would spill into other medical centers, such as Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
About 80 percent of Seton patients obtain care through Medicaid and Medi-Cal, making it a safety-net hospital for seniors and low-income people.
“For them to have to wait for service is deadly,” says Debra Amour, a Seton nurse who’s worked in the facility for nearly 25 years. “As an ICU nurse, I know that.”
Read more: http://www.sfweekly.com/news/major-hospital-bordering-s-f-threatened-by-bankruptcy/
