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OAKLAND – East Bay lawmakers and members of a union of hospital workers rallied Wednesday outside Summit Medical Center, promising to put all their resources into stopping the consolidation of services between Summit and Alta Bates medical centers. 

The two hospitals, which merged in 1999, announced last week that they planned to consolidate maternity services, cancer treatment, mental health and other services at just one of the two facilities. 

The announcement breaks promises made to Alameda County officials and residents at the time of the merger, those attending the rally said. In a brochure mailed to the community before the Summit-Alta Bates hospital merger, the CEOs of both hospitals pledged that the facilities “would continue to operate as full-service community hospitals.” 

Representatives of the Service Workers International Union Local 250, which represents janitorial, housekeeping, and nursing services workers at Alta Bates Summit, fear that the consolidation plan will lead to layoffs of employees and loss of services. 

Alta Bates Summit is an affiliate of Sutter Health, a Sacramento-based hospital network accused by many of Wednesday’s speakers as being the force behind the consolidation plan. 

In a letter to employees, Alta Bates Summit CEO Warren Kirk said the cuts were necessary to stem large financial losses incurred over the last year. 

State Sen. Don Perata set the tone for the rally when he addressed Sutter Health CEO Van Johnson directly. 

“We are either going to go down this road as allies or as adversaries,” he said. “The choice, Mr. Johnson, is yours.” 

Assemblymember Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, said that the consolidation plan showed that Sutter Health was more concerned with making money than with serving the community.  

“That’s what we feared when the merger came about – decisions were going to be based on the bottom line,” she said. 

Aroner and Assemblymember Wilma Chan, D-Alameda, struck back at Sutter Health last week by introducing language that would revoke Sutter’s non-profit status in a pending assembly bill. 

Though Sutter Health is a non-profit organization, it made $111 million in profit last year, they said. 

Perata described a meeting he had organized between many of the lawmakers present at the rally and Sutter Health management in late August. The meeting, he said, was called to address concerns that arose from the abrupt departure earlier in the month of former Alta Bates Summit CEO Irwin Hansen. 

Perata said that he and many of his colleagues asked if the change in management meant that consolidation, long feared by critics of the Alta Bates/Summit merger, was in the works. Johnson denied that it was. 

“They fully agreed to uphold their agreement with the community,” Perata said. 

When Perata and his colleagues asked to be consulted if Sutter management did plan any cuts in service, he said, Johnson and new Alta Bates Summit CEO Warren Kirk agreed. At Wednesday’s rally, he called their response “disingenuous.” 

“They nodded to us as if we were some chumps just coming in out of the rain,” he said. “It appears we were being played for fools.” 

Supervisor Keith Carson, who was also at the meeting, said that Perata was “far too generous” in his characterization of the Sutter management. 

“They lied,” he said. “They are liars.” 

Carson said that after emerging from the meeting, he received a voice mail message telling him from a “very credible” source detailing the consolidation plan that was announced last week. 

The announcement proved that Carson’s source was correct, he said, and that Sutter management had withheld information from him at the meeting. 

“Even if you agree to disagree with someone, you want to have the feeling that the people you’re working with are honest,” he said. “At this point in time, from my point of view, Sutter – and Van Johnson in particular – has no credibility.” 

Aroner said that the consolidation, particularly the plan to put all maternity services at Alta Bates, will strain the resources of each hospital. 

Noting that the Summit maternity ward delivered 3,300 babies last year, she said “You can’t have 3,000 more births at Alta Bates. Where are you going to put them?” 

Aroner also feared that Alta Bates Summit would close its psychiatric services ward at Herrick Health Care in Berkeley if it did not start to make money. 

“As a person who has a family member with a mental illness, I say ‘God forbid Herrick closes.’” 

Berkeley mayor Shirley Dean echoed the sentiments of many of the other speakers when she swore to do everything in her power to fight the consolidation. 

“I’m not known for lying down in the middle of the street, but I will do it for this cause,” she said. 

“If we do not become allies, this place hasn’t seen anything yet. They don’t know the trouble that’s coming down the road.” 

Melinda Paras, executive director of Health Access, a statewide non-profit advocacy group, also promised to fight  

“They will lie to get what they want, and what they want is money,” she said. 

“Health care is not about the manufacture of widgets – it’s about service to the community, it’s about people’s lives.” 

In a telephone interview, Sutter spokesperson Bill Gleeson said that the decision to consolidate was made by the Alta Bates Summit board of directors and not by Sutter. He did say, though, that the consolidation process – what Sutter refers to as “the creation of ‘centers of excellence’” – would ultimately benefit health care consumers. 

“There was a desire, early in the affiliation process, to maintain those services, and this does represent a departure from our intent,” he said. “At the same time, it represents an incredible opportunity.” 

“The East Bay community will benefit incredibly as these ‘centers of excellence’ blossom.”  

Perata disagreed: “When they needed the community, they courted us. When they no longer needed us, they threw us away,” he said.  

“Maybe this is the way Sutter Health does business in other parts of the state, but they’re not going to do it in Oakland and Berkeley.”