Board Member, Division 3 — Tri-City Healthcare District

The three biggest challenges facing the San Diego region in this decade are (1) equitable, universal access to healthcare; (2) improving diversity, equity and inclusion; and (3) strong local control of crucial healthcare and educational facilities. I am running for this position because I want Tri-City Medical Center to remain locally controlled, rather than being part of a large corporation under distant corporate control that is focused solely on profitability rather than local healthcare needs. I’ve seen this happen to numerous hospitals; the outcome is rarely good. Maintaining local control, we can establish standards for access to care that will assure equity, diversity, and inclusion while addressing significant local issues relating to existing disparities in access to health care.

1. Mental health is impacting our community and the world at large. We need to open the behavioral health unit and utilize the more than 100 empty beds in the hospital to serve this vulnerabel community. If we are able to increase mental health services and understand that this is not a profit center but a required service that our community needs it will allow us to help deter the drug addiction and dependencies which lead to homelessness. We have the sspace in the current facility and can utilize it today. The behavioral health unit was closed under false pretense, and it can be reopened today. 

2. Our facility is inefficient, aging and needs a proper master plan to upgrade. Currently the master plan is to build a 335 bed 700,000 sq' tower (we currently have 385 beds and 450,000 sq') but the hospital can only fill 140 of those beds on a daily basis. Instead of trying to force a bond which will cost $700,000,000 I propose a smaller facility NOT attached to the existing hospital. If you do attach it to the existing hospital you will be forced to upgrade this building by 2030 and it will cost us another $300,000,000 to do so. Building a new facility allows us to repurpose the existing facility for services like behavioral health, skilled nursing, and other senior services. I would NOT upgrade or improve the existing physical plant because it is compliant to OSHPD until and through 2030. This would cost around $80,000,000 to upgrade, so why waste the money? By entering a Public-Private-Partnership with a larger organization like Scripps it allows Tri-City to stay a community hospital but have the backing of a larger organization. This will allow Scripps to invest capital into Tri-City helping increase the quality of care and sservices to north county.

3. I understand how healthcare finances work and I have seen that the financial reports. There are millions of dollars missing in cash from the Tri-City reports as compared to the audited state financial reports on the California Health & Human Services website. We need to implement a forensic accountant to find out where the money has gone and get people on the boards and committees who are qualified to review finances. When we do this, we need an ICOC (independent citizens oversight committee) to review what is really going on and increase transparency and inclusion with the community

I have gone to Sacramento on three different occasions to speak out against proposed assembly bills, which we successfully defeated with a grass roots effort. I will stand up for everyone and not just make speaches or statements from the Board table.