The Evolving Crises at Laguna Honda Hospital …

West of Twin Peaks Central Council unanimously passes resolution calling for audit of Laguna Honda Hospital’s patient gift fund.

New 2/12/12  Laguna Honda's 2010 Fundraising Dinner:  $260K Black Hole Expenses

12/3/11  Laguna Honda Charitable Giving Plummets — Again

10/23/11  Six Deadly Ballot Measures

10/23/11  "Pension Reform" Ballot Measures Omit Salary Reform

9/3/11  Laguna Honda Hospital Scandal —
Patient Gift Fund Records Referred to D.A. and Feds

8/8/11  On Laguna Honda Hospital — God’s Hotel:  
A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine

7/3/11  Watchdogs, Whistleblowers and Grand Juries
[Is City Attorney Dennis Herrera the Ultimate Barrier to Open Government?]

6/17/11  Three-Part Series on Pandora's Secrecy Box:
Corruption of San Francisco's Whistleblower Program
[This is the Detailed Version First Published on CitiReport.com]

6/17/11  Opening Pandora's Secrecy Box:
Corruption of San Francisco's Whistleblower Program
[The Short Version that appeared in the Westside Observer Newspaper]

5/7/11  Commingling of Public and Private Funds
Two Non-Profit Organizations, and the City, Quietly Mix Their Funds

4/5/11  Snoozing at Laguna Honda’s Gift Fund Wheel

3/27/11  Analysis of Laguna Honda Volunteers, Inc.'s Tax Returns Reveals
"Program Services" Plummets to Just 56.9 Percent of Total Expenditures

2/13/11  Health Commission Misses the Point: Laguna Honda's Gift Fund Scandal

2/13/11  Verbatim Transcript of Health Commission's JCC Meeting, December 3, 2010

10/31/10:  Scapegoating Public Employees: Reasons to Vote "No" on Adachi's Prop B

10/3/10:  Accounting Red Flags Over Laguna Honda Hospital's Patient Gift Fund Audit

9/3/10:  Multiple Black Holes Engulf Laguna Honda Hospital

7/10/10:  Unanswered Questions Remain Regarding LHH’s Patient Gift Fund

8/2/10:    Cartoon Regarding Claims Louise Renne Filed Tabocco Lawsuit
Made During LHH's RIbbon-Cutting Ceremony June 26, 2010

5/24/10:  Raiding the Public's Trust: LHH's Patient Gift Fund Scrutinized

 5/2/10:  LHH "Change Order" Cost Overrun Lessons Impact All Bond-Financed Projects

2/6/10:  In Memoriam: Laguna Honda's Torchbearer, Sister Miriam Walsh, Has Died

2/610:  Laguna Honda Hospital Won't Discuss Delays
LHH Delays Its Move-In Date … and
Its Executive Administrator Refuses to Answer Questions

 2/610:  Laguna Honda Hospital Policy Questions, by George Wooding

12/20/09:  Laguna Honda Hospital Featured in "The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S."

12/12/09:  Rebuttal to a Nurse Practitioner's November 2009 Letter About LHH

 12/09/09:  Déjà Vu Haunts Laguna Honda Hospital

 11/27/09:  A Mental Health Professional Weighs in on the "Ja Report" on LHH

 10/7/09:  Laguna Honda's Unkindest Cut (Medical Care)

10/6/09:  SF Long-Term Care Obmudsman's Thoughts on the Ja Report

9/30/09:  Flawed Davis Y. Ja Report on LHH "Behavioral Health" Services
Report recommends replacing physicians with registered nurses, social workers, and psychologists
Includes Critical Analysis of Ja Report Written by Two Physicians

9/7/09:  Laguna Honda Hospital's Identity Crisis

7/4/09:  Laguna Honda Hospital:  Pot-bellied Pigs vs. Beds?
Including Links to a Number of Reports

8/18/07 Mayor Newsom Assures Community Members LHH Will Provide Assisted Living
8/27/07: Plans for Senior Housing at LHH in Complete Shambles — at $1 Million Per Unit?
Including Public Comments Analyzing the Draft Feasibility Report

8/18/07 Chambers Lawsuit Against Laguna Honda Hospital — Testimony Needed Now
8/18/07 LHH Releases MDS Data Showing 73% of Residents Have No Discharge Potential

New 11/25/07:  Disinformation Presented in the Chambers Lawsuit Against Laguna Honda

Forthcoming: Deconstructing Lucette: How a Wall Street Journal Senior Reporter Got LHH Dead Wrong

If the Current Plan to Downsize LHH by 420 Beds by Not Building the West Tower Is Approved by the Health Commission and the San Francisco Board of Supervisor's, Mayor Newsom’s Ten-yearPlan to End Homelessness Will Displace 180 of Laguna Honda's “Complex Medical” and Chronic-Care Residents, Plus Another 240 People

In 1999, voters passed Prop. A to rebuild Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center as a healthcare facility. Mayor Gavin “Care-Not-Cash” Newsom, ignoring the will of voters, has other plans for the Laguna Honda campus.  His plans amount to a land grab. Those plans involve replacing skilled nursing care at LHH with “supportive housing” — under a so-called “social–residential” model of care — in order to deliver on his pledge to solve the City’s homeless problem. What the Mayor doesn’t understand is that voters have NOT authorized him to retroactively change Prop. A to build housing. Learn more ...

LHH Foundation Suspends Operations and Fundraising Is the LHH Foundation Deceiving Its Supporters? Mayor Newsom Ignores LHH Issues and Ignores Correspondence Concerned Citizen Writes to Mayor Newsom About LHH Problems An Open Letter to Mayor Newsom:  Come Clean With San Franciscans — Where's Your Mayoral Vision for Laguna Honda Hospital Position Paper? Long-Term Care Coordinating Council Disses Laguna Honda

StraightFacts–Part II: FastFacts Claim $1.7 Million DPH Budget Savings Is Untrue StraightFacts–Part I: People Over 70 Differentially Denied Admissions Mitch Katz Has Trouble With Basic Math, Despite Training Mitch Katz First Offends LHH Staff; Then Only Half Apologizes LHH CEO Releases “Frequently Asked Questions” Paper Citing Misinformation Laguna Honda Hospital Issues Raised in National Publication KPFA Radio: Debate on LHH; “Either/Or” Key Issue

Save LHH Fact Sheet Neighborhood Association’s December 16, 2004 Town Hall Meeting LHH Downsizing StraightFacts Summary

Graffiti that appeared during the “Bridge Demolition" Party held at LHH, August; 2004. View: LHH Main Building, Southeast From Bridge.

Committee to Save LHH Flyer Flyer for Nov 16, 2004 Meeting of Health Commission Sudden Changes to November 16, 2004 Health Commission Meeting

FOR OVER 50 YEARS, LAGUNA HONDA HOSPITAL AND REHABILITATION CENTER (LHH) has been a medical-model, long-term care skilled nursing facility (SNF) serving San Francisco’s elderly, frail residents.  Doctors, nurses, and ancillary staff at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center (LHH) are a close-knit interdisciplinary team providing skilled nursing and rehabilitation care to our elderly and people with disabilities, compassionate, safe environment.

Now, about the only way people can get into LHH is if they have a dual, or triple, diagnosis (that would include some sort of medical problem requiring skilled nursing care, along with either a second diagnosis of mental illness, or a third diagnosis of substance abuse).  Those with a single diagnosis (say Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or a traumatic head injury), are finding it more difficult to be admitted into LHH.  Increasingly in San Francisco, unless you have multiple diagnoses, your access to public health services is being curtailed.  (The same phenomena occuring at LHH is also occuring, or soon will, at so-called AIDS “integrated service programs” funded with Ryan White CARE Act money that have curtailed eligibility to only those having dual and triple diagnoses, leaving those with a single diagnosis of AIDS to fend for themselves.)

Gleaned from public records and public records requests, conflicting smoke signals are occurring about the true amount of cost overruns of the LHH replacement facility, and how cost overruns will affect the downsizing of LHH from the 1,200 beds promised to voters who passed Proposition A in 1999.

Now, LHH’s future is in dire jeopardy, and irreversible decisions about its future are to be made by the end of December 2005!

There is good reason to believe that the new LHH may open with 300 to 400 fewer beds than promised in 1999.  Should that occur, losing 300 to 400 SNF beds in one fell swoop, and another 180 beds converted for “locked units,” could increase San Francisco’s SNF-bed shortage in the year 2020 (just 16 years from now) to between 1,588 and 2,880 beds short.

The problems of the disabled, frail, and elderly seeking admission to LHH are caused by a shortage of nursing homes and funding cuts.  How did this come to be?  And how did the voters of San Francisco get mislead, yet again, by vague ballot initiatives that result in not getting what the voters were promised?

LHH Downsizing StraightFacts Summary

• As of May 27, 2004, the cost overrun for the replacement facility was reported to be “$30 million.”
• On June 1, 2004, it was reported that up to 240 beds may be eliminated from the new hospital.
• As of September 7, 2004, the cost overrun may have grown by an additional $10 million between the end of May and September 2004 to $40 million.
• When asked on September 7 whether the additional cost overrun might require cutting another 60 beds, bringing the total to 300 beds to be cut from the new hospital, the rebuild project manager indicated that might be a possibility.
• On September 29, 2004, material submitted by the Replacement Facility project manager to the Board of Supervisors’ Finance and Audits Committee revealed that in Spring 2004 the general manager of the project, Turner Construction Company, prepared an estimate that reveals the cost overrun for the replacement project stands at a staggering $43.984 million.
• The LHH Replacement Project will provide “300 fully secured [locked] units, which will begin coming on line in FY 07-08”; they represent 180 more locked units than in the current facility, and are intended to be used for younger, combative patients who are behaviorally disruptive and unsafe along side of frail, elderly San Franciscans.
• Between the 300 beds likely not to be built, and the extra 180 “locked units,” the new facility will probably open with nearly 500 fewer skilled nursing beds than promised in 1999.
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