Saving Public Health in San Francisco:

The Economic House of Cards is Collapsing,
  and San Francisco Faces a Major Crisis.
The Mayor's Business-Driven Agenda Says
Workers and the Poor Have To Suffer the Cuts.
                We Say NO WAY!

What is endangered?

1. The neighborhood clinic system that allows uninsured working families, youth, elders, Healthy San Francisco recipients, and homeless folks to get health services and medical treatment in their own neighborhoods instead of only through General Hospital;

2. The General Hospital clinic serving all of the above populations is losing half it’s medical and nursing staff.

3. Community-based and culturally appropriate HIV and AIDS prevention services;

4. Health advocacy and policy organizations that are the front line to protect our vulnerable residents and inform City Hall and the Department of Public Health;

5. Uninsured mental health patients’ legal right to care is being threatened, as well as most public mental health and substance abuse services;

6. Family and Children healthcare programs that organize for family needs and provide real services and distribution of tangible resources;

7. Trained General Hospital frontline workers that determine whether a patient's conditions is urgent, and refer patients to departments based on assessments of their symptoms and needs, would be replaced by workers with no relevant training. Most of these workers are women of color with licensed training for one specific job classification that is not transferable except to the replacement classification.

8. Shelter's supplies budgets will be slashed, hurting only the poorest of the poor.

9. And much, much more!

 

In the Fall of 1999, hundreds of patients were forced to stand in lines for many hours at the Main Pharmacy of San Francisco General Hospital.    Hospital administrators wanted to drive Medi-Cal patients away, and had closed an auxiliary pharmacy with the express purpose of  creating long lines in the Main Pharmacy.  Hundreds of angry patients and health workers flooded Health Commission meetings to prevent Administration from closing the Main Pharmacy also.