An Open Letter to Our Community
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Setting The Record Straight
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Recently, news coverage and the ill-informed have been hard at work communicating changes at San Leandro Hospital. Unfortunately, much of the information has been incorrect or misleading. We would like to set the record straight and help our community understand the health care environment that drives change.
We Are Focused on Our Mission and Purpose
Eden Medical Center is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to provide quality health care services to our communities. Our single goal above all others is to provide critically needed services in the best way possible to those in need.
We Invest In Our Hospitals and Our Community
Eden Medical Center has invested more than $3.5 million in capital improvements at San Leandro Hospital since its purchase in July of 2004. A few of these investments include new anesthesia machines and cardiac monitors, radiology and ultrasound equipment, ventilators, patient beds, operating room improvements, and a significant investment in information technology upgrades. In addition, we have invested more than $2 million in improvements in wages and benefits for employees, keeping this talented group of caregivers on par with others in the Bay Area.
Our hospitals in San Leandro and Castro Valley provide all necessary medical care to every person who comes to our emergency rooms, regardless of ability to pay. In 2005, we provided $25.3 million in charity care for residents unable to pay. In order to provide this level of care, we pay our community physicians for their time on call to the Emergency and Trauma departments or for their direct services to patients from whom we receive no payment at all. The guaranteed availability of doctors benefits all patients in need of emergency or trauma services.
These investments far exceed the support San Leandro Hospital received from its previous owners, and demonstrate Eden’s efforts to keep the hospital financially viable and self-sustaining. To meet our commitment, we must and do strive to earn a profit. No business can sustain itself without a profit. However, as a not-for-profit hospital, the income we do earn goes back into the hospital and community in the form of investments in technology, employees and physicians.
We Are Committed to Health Care
The health care industry, and hospitals in particular, are facing tremendous challenges: a growing number of uninsured residents needing medical care, reimbursement for health services far below the actual cost of care, soaring costs for equipment and pharmaceuticals, and the expectation that our community hospitals provide the highest quality medical care that is accessible and affordable. Eden Medical Center is facing these very challenges, while also striving to meet the unfunded mandates of the state of California: nurse staffing levels, the provision of unpaid services, and newly defined seismic standards that require the investment in excess of $100 million.
Eden's administration and Board of Directors have a responsibility to ensure that vital services — those that are at the core of our mission, most needed by the community and can only be provided in an acute care hospital — cannot be compromised. We must conserve precious and scarce resources so we can continue that work. Some providers have responded to these challenges by leaving the State. Our response is to stay in this community and work with local providers and physicians. Change is difficult, and some decisions in the short term may not seem consistent with our mission and commitment, but they are essential for the long-term viability of our hospitals.
How You Can Help
Patients have a choice in where they receive health care services. The employees of Eden Medical Center and our San Leandro Hospital Campus encourage you to choose us and continue to support the hospitals that have cared for you for more than 50 years.
If you have questions or concerns, please send us an e-mail.
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