Laguna Honda Hospital: Our Moral Obligation
By Edward A. Chow, M.D.

For generations Asian Americans have prided themselves for taking care on their elderss in the best manner possible manner -- in their own home and surrounded by loved ones.

But recent statistics indicate that many Asian American families are finding it more challenging to care for their seniors at home due to two full time working adults and pressures to give the highest care possible. Some seniors are simply too ill to receive care at home.

In the past decade, Asian American enrollment into Laguna Honda Hospital has risen to 17 percent and that number will go higher as our population ages. In addition, over 58 percent of the healthcare professionals are Asian American, making it a good economic reason to keep the public hospital open.

For the past 133 years Laguna Honda Hospital has filled an important reservoir in San Francisco’s landscape. It’s a reservoir of help, hope and the best of the human spirit. Laguna Honda has provided skilled nursing and rehabilitative care to San Francisco’s elderly and people with disabilities of all ages in an environment of compassion and community.

Laguna Honda is more than a hospital -- it is home to over 1,000 San Franciscans who require 24-hour care to live their lives in comfort and dignity. It’s also a community of people who live in the heart of one of the finest neighborhoods in the City. Laguna Honda Hospital rests on a 62-acre wooded grove just across from the Forest Hill Muni station. Its community-based location allows hundreds of families and volunteers easy access to their loved ones, people who require specialized and extended skilled nursing care.

But our reservoir of human care is being threatened by a federal mandate that will significantly cut funding to Laguna Honda Hospital unless we rebuild the seismically unsafe hospital. If this reduction in funding occurs, the long-term survival of the hospital will be jeopardized. It is an outcome we cannot afford.

The main objections of the federal mandate are the 30-bed “open wards” which have been ruled as non-compliant since the mid-’80s. The federal regulators have granted waivers since the Feinstein administration in the hopes that the City rebuilds Laguna Honda Hospital with some private rooms. The second objection is the seismic safety of the hospital. Memories still remain of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and the City must provide a safe environment in which to provide these vital healthcare services.

We can save Laguna Honda Hospital and fulfill our moral imperative to the City’s most vulnerable citizens. In this election voters can support the passage of a $299 million bond measure, Proposition A, which will fund the cost of rebuilding Laguna Honda Hospital into a state of the art skilled nursing facility. The new facility will be seismically safe and provide for the residents in smaller rooms of one, two and four people in a homelike environment.

Laguna Honda’s nurses, doctors and staff work as a close-knit team, whether providing expert care or leading patients in recreational or therapeutic sessions. Another essential element of the caregiving team is the hundreds of volunteers who attend to the personal needs of Laguna Honda residents. Whether assisting medical staff, serving meals, conducting arts, crafts and musical activities, taking residents for walks around the grounds, the volunteers contribute to the strong sense of family and community that allows Laguna Honda residents to feel truly at home.

We have a moral imperative to save this hospital from reduced funding. If we fail, the effects will be devastating. In the short term we would have an immediate moratorium on admissions, fail in our ability to meet San Francisco’s need for skilled nursing care and put pressure on acute hospitals which will raise the cost of care. In the long term San Francisco’s growing population of elderly will not have a sufficient health care infrastructure to meet its needs.

Fortunately the tobacco lawsuit settlement monies won in court by the San Francisco City Attorney’s office can be applied to the costs of rebuilding Laguna Honda Hospital. Those funds, plus the proceeds of a bond issue on this November’s ballot, will assure construction of a modern, state-of-the-art replacement facility that will continue Laguna Honda’s long tradition of compassionate care for San Francisco’s most needy and deserving, well into the 21st century.

Dr. Chow has served as Health Commissioner of San Francisco for the past 10 years and is Medical Director of the Chinese Community Health Plan at the Chinese Hospital.