Catholic Church to Mom: Crawl Away and Die.

Catholic Healthcare West is an enormous corporation with assets in the many billions of dollars. They run an operation in Sacramento called Mercy General Hospital. All of my brothers and sisters were born there, and my mother worked there for 20 years as an RN, 10 years as a chaplain of pastoral care.

She has lived on 39th Street for 60 years, across the street from the school and the hospital, down the street from the church, tending to her garden, her 11 children, 38 grandchildren, 8 great-grandchildren, and her countless genuine friends cast upon the winds of 6 continents.

People walk from all corners of the neighborhood to view her fragrant, delightful garden in its riotous glory, and perhaps catch a glimpse of her as she moves the water-hose or kneels to nurture a small living thing. Often she is near enough to the passer-by to share a word or two, but most often she is by herself, singing softly her praises to god and her songs of life in all its infinite mystery.

Yesterday the parish priest paid a call on my mother, and informed her that the church had made a deal with the corporation to move the school across the street onto her property and the surrounding area, so that the hospital will have room to expand operations and build a parking lot.

The church group would like her very much to go away. "Someone will come to you with an offer," he said. She replied, "Don't bother." She also took the time to reiterate to the priest the history of relations between CHW/MGH and the neighborhood going back 6 decades. She told how they have broken every agreement they have ever made to the neighbors, driven scores of families to leave and countless widows to tears, relentlessly acquiring acres of property in the heart of our beloved East Sac. I know those old women cried because they did so on my mother's shoulder.

Mom is a died-in-the wool farm girl, raised on work and prayer, and began "riding fence" when she was eight years old. An RN, she is a WWII veteran and a charter member of WIMSA (Women in Military Service to America), which memorial comprises the magnificent entry to Arlington National Cemetery. She is heart and soul an Acadian of the old school, driven only by the love and faith of that ancient French tribe which found these shores nearly 3 centuries ago. Although slight of stature, she is not a woman to be trifled with by corporations or denominations of any ilk, and she will not be moved.

John Dryden said "Beware the fury of a patient man." My mother is a fighter and she is ready for an epic battle, one 90 year-old woman facing down a corporation with the temerity to make bishops and monsignors its apologists and water-carriers.

land.....they have shown disdain for the neighbors in the area...please watch out for your mom and her safety.....

Tell your mom good luck from her friends at DU!!

corporation on the planet.

Were I to believe in God, I would ask him to damn them all to hell!

Hope there are resources to help her fight and win :hug:

So they probably won't be the kind of dicks that regular corporations are...She may be able to get them to change their minds. If it were a for profit, things might get uglier...

non profits when greed for profit or not is their main spinning wheel.

i, from one fighting eldress to another, stand with the lady who is not going to give up her property, no matter how many, or what kinds of dicks, try to pry it away from her.

I just don't know what their main spinning wheel is. If this hospital thinks that it can provide care to more people at less cost by putting their cardiac care unit right there, then I am willing to admit its a complex situation. But I personally stand with conservatives and liberals against the SCOTUS ruling that says emminent domain can include seizures for private institutions, which is what could give precedent to actually throw her out here...

I worked for a CHW hospital a few years ago. It was the most corrupt hospital I had ever worked for. Non profit just means they make even more money by not having to pay taxes.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. I swear.

Let me compose myself:

Some of the biggest asshole corporatists on the planet hide behind large non-profits that pay no taxes and never have to open their books **cough cough universities like NYU cough cough*** They are some of the sickest and slickest fucks in the business. They rake in the dough AND take tax payer monies.

Through salaries? Non-profits can't legally make profits for individuals...And I've never heard of a non-profit like Halliburton or big oil or pharma.

Take NYU for example: president gets $1 million a year salary while 80% of teaching staff are adjuncts/temporary/TAs with limited or no health benefits, many faculty working at the poverty level. The university "loaned" the money for a new house to the president and a major dean. The president has 2 NYC apartments that underwent 23 million dollars in renovations alone (I believe it was last year.)

Because non-profits don't have to open their books, we have NO IDEA what is going on with NYU finances (in other words, who gets money for what.) They are the largest private landholder in Manhattan; they have the highest tuition in the nation; they make a killing on overcharging students for dorms and services; they have a $5 BILLION tax payer endowment from the state of NY. They just spent MILLIONS of dollars hiring the most expensive union-busting firm in the nation to ensure that their graduate student workers don't have a contract. Their trustees are among the wealthiest elites in Manhattan (Larry Silverstein-- WTC owner, Mort Zuckerman--owner of the Post).

Lord knows where this money goes. Certainly not to the teachers. I don't see much flowing to the departments either. In lower Manhattan, NYU is largely thought of as a real estate company with the face of a university to hide its business practices.

Non-profits can be really profitable for those involved. And those involved can be incredibly vicious.

It sounds right off the bat like laws are bind broken there, or sidestepped in a mobster fashion....I'm not a non-profit expert, but one thing I've heard a lot is that non-profits have to have a lot of transparency with their finances. See the public financial page for the hospital mentioned by the OP:
http://www.chwhealth.org/stellent/websites/get_page_cache.asp?nodeId=5005465

So it strikes me as wierd that there is a university that doesn't have to open their books. The only non-profit groups I've heard of that don't are churches, but as I said I don't know the details.

But I don't doubt what you are saying. I have a freind in Buffalo, and I got a glimpse into the inner workings of the town..Insane corruption. I'm lucky to live in a relatively not corrupt place.

They hire the best law firms in the city to find loopholes and proceed from there. In fact, NYU calls itself an "enterprise university." Others call it the "Walmartization" of universities.

have to file Federal Form 990, which provides extensive financial information including income statements and balance sheets. In addition, they have to make the 990 publically available. (The main exception to this are faith-based organizations.) NYU is a non-profit organization. Their 990 is public record. In addition, because they likely hold numerous mortgages used to build their facilities (as well as the prudence required in an organization of their size), they are audited by a CPA firm annually.


http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=135005,00.html :

"Exempt Organizations Subject to Public Disclosure Requirements

What organizations are tax-exempt organizations for purposes of the law requiring that certain tax documents be disclosed and copies of those documents be provided to persons requesting them?

The law affects organizations exempt from federal income tax under § 501(a) and described in section 501(c) and § 501(d). Examples of the type of tax-exempt organization to which the law applies include: charities, schools, labor organizations, business leagues, fraternities, social clubs, veterans organizations, and voluntary employees' beneficiary associations. See Types of Organizations for more information about these organizations. It also applies to political organizations exempt from taxation under § 527(a).

This law does not apply to certain split-interest trusts. Additionally, the law does not affect those organizations that are exempt under other provisions of the Code, for example: § 521, farmers' cooperatives; § 528, homeowners' associations and § 529, qualified state tuition programs."

There are many community groups and two international labor unions who have been asking for something as simple of an ownership chart-- just to know what properties NYU owns-- and I've repeatedly heard the administration say that no such list exists.

I don't know why researchers can't get information on the University, but I know (personally) two paid researchers whose sole job is to expose this sort of financial information on the University and they can't find it.

The City Council of Manhattan has found the university so contemptuous that they're withholding 10 million dollars from the University and forbidding it to purchase any more property for development until it works out various issues with the community.

"don't need to open their books" which to me is financial information. A large number of NPFs are audited by outside accountants and most complete the 990, which is available to the public. Many will send out copies of audited financial statements to donors or prospective donors upon request. Details of real estate holdings are a different matter. They are not usually disclosed in audited financial statements at any level of detail, altho the auditors would have access to the details obviously.

no wonder my sis and BIL were complaining about the tuition, and no wonder my dear niece is going to graduate a semester early - to save a little $$.

"....they have the highest tuition in the nation."

What in God's name did they do?

The Church's lawyers are ruthless. Ask any SNAP member.

They may still (for tax purposes) be considered "not-for-profit" but they have consolidated under corporate CEO hospital administrations that are as ruthless as any on the "for profit" side.

My RN sister has worked for many many years in a leading Southeastern Catholic hospital. Under consolidation, all along the East coast down to the South Catholic hospitals are sending their wrecking crew CEOs into these hospitals to break any talk of unionization, to totally demoralize (in order to get rid of the highest paid older workers), destroy the heath policies for their own workers (who can't even get care in their own hospital), and to force unsafe nurse-patient ratios (the issue that finally nailed Schwartzenegger in California). They go in and order supervisors to break up "working friendships" by changing everyone's schedules and shifts (which totally disrupts family relationships as well, if you know people who have worked certain schedules and shifts for many years)...

The ass sent to my sister's hospital started the first meeting for administration and senior staff by stating that nurses (shortage or no) were nothing more than overpriced "stewardesses." :eyes:

It has gotten really realy nasty...

Still bizzare to me though. Why get in a union busting team when the company itself makes no profits for anybody, just pays salaries and collects assets? It seems like there may need to be some laws passed to clean up non-profits if all I've heard in response to my reply here is true.

Many spin off a "for-profit" side as well, which might be surgery centers, specialty clinics, etc. But, they still gain a major break from taxation.

What you recall of non-profit Catholic hospitals was probably true--depending on your age-- when you were a child, but hasn't been the case for many decades. Health care is a "dog-eat-dog" industry, and the non-profits are following suit.
If you think for one minute, that you get more "charitable" care in today's Catholic hospitals, you would sadly be quite wrong. :shrug:

It has been that way for well over a century. Workers should have rights and unions are a step towards that.

Very interesting. I have to say that I am finding this thread interesting as I am familiar with Mercy Hospital as I also used to live on 39th Street and my grandmother passed away in that hospital. What they are doing is awful. Your comments on the corporate CEO administrators being ruthless really hits home. This is not just happening to Catholic hospitals or those on the East Coast. Here in Sacramento, there is at least one major (non-Catholic) hospital undergoing the same thing. They brought in new administrators and are bound and determined to crush the unions & dump the older workers before they qualify for full pensions. It is brutal, and morale is horrible. I'm frightened that this is the future...

hospitals. I think for many responding to this post, the idea that Catholic hospital management has become equally ruthless (and hardly the model of "charity,") remains news--even though it has been the trend for quite some time.

I think, frankly, it has really accelerated with the "die off" of the old order nuns, who used to provide some services in the Catholic hospitals. Those that remain, are close to extinction, it appears.

Whe Sacred Heart Parish I was born into was a large and cohesive group of devout Catholics for whom the Church, School, and Hospital were without question the center of their lives. The laity understood as an article of faith that service to the poor, sick, and dying is a holy thing - an act of love and praise to the Lord.

We lived that way: When one of my older sisters, aged 12, was hit by a city bus and died, the parish gathered round us for 3 days, as her body lay "in state" in the front room of our home. On the day of her burial, they held a procession from our house, up thirty-ninth street to the church - Mary's coffin followed by a mournful congregation including several hundred schoolchildren. My father would run errands for the nuns whenever he had the time until he died and left Mom with 12 kids under the age of 18. When Daddy died, the parish overwhelmed us with love and support for many years, donating clothing and foodstuffs and doing everything they could to help.

That was back in the '60s, when the parish festival lasted for almost 3 days. But since then, the parish has lost the scent of those old days, and people have come and gone, Mom has gotten old, and people have forgotten what life was like when we were truly "one in the spirit".

In 1979, The Sisters of Mercy and a half-dozen other religious orders formed a consortium to create CHW. In the already highly competetive healthcare industry, they did what they thought they needed to do to survive and ensure the safe retirement of the elders of their orders, as recruitment was becoming a problem.

Soon thereafter the building began, and many decisions were made without the slightest regard to the needs or desires of the parish congregation or the larger community. So may people have been driven away already! My mother can tell you all their names, their children, the names of their pets, their habits and foibles, but always with a mist in her eyes because they are all gone - become literally an oilstain laid down in the name of progress.

This episode is just another tale in a veritable litany of atrocities committed in the name of our bizarre, perverse, diseased healthcare system.

of how community and religion once flourished together. Sadness and happiness, so intertwined through loving support of a religious community that really sought to live the teachings of Christ.

We've lost so much and are much the worst off for it...

Best wishes to you, your wonderful mother, and your family.

they will have a "no code" on her. And I'm sure she knows that. How proud you must be to have such a courageous mom! No wonder you're a Democrat!

very courageous woman. please tell her that all of us here at DU wish her well in this battle, and do, please, let us know if there is anything we can do to help.

watch out for a sudden influx of "code enforcement" type problems, other situations that are a kind of set-up. eminent domain can get quite ugly.

I'm sorry about your mom, but what do you suggest the hospital do with the sick people that they don't have room to treat?

However, they wish to construct a massive regional cardiac care facility in the heart of a residential neighborhood. North Natomas needs a hospital, and there is room out there for a great project.

And that people in the older neighborhoods find transportation way out to north wherever. I also hope you don't come back in ten years and bitch about how the Catholic Church abandoned the poor in favor of building in the emerging economy of North Natomas.

folks like La_Fourmi_Rouge's mom, like my parents, moved to the area when it was still affordable for average working class folks. Now it's prime residential real estate at primo prices, even in a slumping housing market. Definitely not for poor folks.

39th Street across from Sacred Heart School/Mercy Hospital has houses which were affordable decades ago to working class folks. But just on the other side of Mercy Hospital is Sacramento's "Fabulous Forties," the area where Reagan lived when he was Governor. East Sac is far from some inner city poor area, just in case that's what you are thinking. It wasn't decades ago and sure isn't today.

And Mercy Hospital isn't moving anywhere, it's still going to be there. (By the way, there is no lack of hospitals within just a couple miles: Sutter General, Sutter Memorial, UCD Med Center in addition to Mercy.) And Mercy wants to take over the houses on 39th for Sacred Heart School while they build another facility (the Alex Spanos Heart Center) where the school is now.

Knowing the area quite well, which you do not, and knowing how few of the old timers are left in the neighborhood I can well understand the OP's and his mom's point of view. CHW/Mercy has other facilities and other options.

But move all the services to another part of town and see what happens.

I'm not saying whether this hospital necessarily needs to expand on its current location, only that they aren't doing it just to be malicious and steal people's homes.

It also doesn't take a whole lot of reading to find out all the hospitals are expanding as well as retrofitting to the 1996 earthquake codes.

several hospitals in the immediate area. I actually live here, a few blocks down from Mercy and a few blocks from Sutter Gen which also isn't leaving. Sutter Gen's on 29th and K, Mercy's on 39th-41st and J. A bit further are Sutter Memorial on 52nd and F and UCD Med Ctr by 39th and Stockton Blvd. That's how many hospital facilities we have in the downtown area. Check it out on a map if you wish.

East Sac and downtown Sac will not be bereft of hospital facilites if Mercy doesn't add yet another facility to its current J Street location. It's an additional regional facility that's proposed, not a replacement for its current hospital. And they do have other facilities in the metro Sacto area to which they could add a specialized treatment center. Or could find another location. Or could find another location for its school, which is what they want to take over the 39th Street houses for. It's not a matter of replacing an existing hospital as you seem to think. And Mercy apparently isn't trying to take over land on the "Fabulous Forties" side. Locals can figure out why.

So how are all the medical services leaving the downtown/East Sac area? They're not. Are you a Sacramento resident who lives within walking distance to all these hospitals and have actually been in them? I am.

Please at least credit locals with actually knowing something about their own neighborhood.

And just because you live there doesn't mean you're fully aware of everything involved in the expansions of the various hospitals, or all of the reasons. Other hospitals have the same objections from social groups. All I'm saying is that it is just the nature of inner-cities that sometimes houses have to be torn down in order to keep a downtown vibrant and growing. If you continually move services out of the area, sooner or later the downtown will decay. These hospitals have to meet new earthquake regulations as well. They either rebuild some wings or close. You aren't portraying the situation fairly, and neither is the OP, and that has nothing to do with whether you live there or not.

http://www.connectednow.com/articles/articles_nov/articles_doctors.html

http://www.news10.net/storyfull2.aspx?storyid=14658

neighborhood issues than those who actually live in the area? A couple articles on the net make you an expert over East Sac's "inner city" needs? Amazing. If you actually knew the area, you'd realize what a presumptuous load that is. (And yes, I'm also aware of Sutter's expansion plans.)

First, we're not talking an "inner city" downtown area in need of development. It's primarily, predominantly a residential area that's doing just fine, the old "suburbs" to downtown. It's actually a pretty vibrant residential area. Not in need of "fixing."

The Mercy hospital expansion in itself won't add "vibrancy" to the area, possibly more traffic though, which is not helpful on residential streets. Previous expansion years ago, for example, included replacing beautiful residences on J with a parking lot, not exactly a big neighborhood enhancer.

Second, you've got the wrong end of the stick and the situation: it's not a matter of the hospital not being able to remain or even expand without taking over the housing on 39th. Mercy "campus" is now big enough they can expand the hospital within their existing area.

The issue is what to do with the parish school currently on hospital grounds. The church opposed the expansion project until of course they cut a deal with the corporation. Now they've cut the deal. What they and the Church now want to do is move the parish school, currently on the hospital grounds, across the street. They want to take over the houses for the school and parking.

I never said the area needed fixing. I certainly never said I was an "expert". I never even said I supported the hospital's plan. I said hospitals, and other public institutions, have to expand somewhere and there will always be something in the way, be it homes, homeless, or even open space. I also said when state-of-the-art medical facilities start leaving downtown areas, it's only a matter of time before the business community follows. That's just the nature of workers and economies.

The school does matter in relation to the expansion, the expansion wasn't likely to happen without meeting the needs of the school. It also isn't just an expansion, which you keep ignoring, construction has to take place for the hospital to meet earthquake regulations. That creates the same problems that exist now. Since it's the school that wants the houses, why isn't anybody just suggesting the school move. It's no more important than hospital safety and facility upgrades. But then, attacking a grade school just doesn't have quite the same snap as evil Catholics and evil medical corporations. Talk about swiftboating.

It also isn't always true that the people in a community have the monopoly on the issues. I got an email about a month ago from someone asking about pollutants in our town that might cause leukemia. I haven't heard of anything like that, and pretty much dismissed it. However, when my daughter told me yesterday that 5 of her friends have had miscarriages in the last couple of weeks, I decided I might better take a second look. I'm glad somebody from out of my entire state was willing to ask questions that local people haven't asked.

CHW is using the earthquake standards issue to wedge an enormouse expansion of operations into an inadequate space. Their PR department would like people to think that, if we do not allow their 180,000 SF Heart center to be built, they will no longer be able to supply general medicine and an emergency room to the community - and this is their primary reason for existence.

Do you know that, after the expansion, Mercy plans to do LESS general medicine onsite? Do you know that they have rejected underground parking because they deem it too expensive?

Do you know that the school, the church, and the corporation, under the aegis of the Bishop himself, have engaged in the most heinously conniving, duplicitous double - dealing and outright lying to the community for the past 3 YEARS? The blang CHURCH is doing this! This is cynical even by Sacramento standards, a city legendary for the cutthroat two-facedness of its political class.

39th Street has been the most heavily trafficed pedestrian thoroughfare in East Sac for decades, and CHW is intent of turning it into a stinking mess of automobiles and delivery trucks.

They're building in order to meet earthquake standards too.

http://www.news10.net/storyfull2.aspx?storyid=14658

And they have their own set of union problems.

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2006/08/28/story2.html

This hospital will focus on women's and children's health. Specializing, instead of trying to duplicate all services, is the way hospitals will be able to deliver the highest quality of care overall.

I am sorry your mom is in this situation, I am sorry for anybody who finds themselves in the way of a public project. But that's what these are, public projects. They have to go somewhere and they're going to disrupt somebody's life or the ecosystem or usually, both. It isn't because they're attempting to be heinous and carelessly throw old people out in the street. I find it interesting you only have a problem with the one facility, and not Sutter Health. What's the difference??

a massive expansion in the area and has bought up lots of the area around J street (I believe). The area is very hospital dense.Whereas Natomas is not, but I heard Kaiser is planning hospital in Natomas on existing land that does not contain any homes.

Not a specialized cardiac center. It's also rebuilding due to earthquake regulations, same as Mercy. They've got union problems and environmental problems, and probably residential problems too. And Mercy is also already planning a medical facility in Natomas.

Downtown Sacramento has 7 hospitals, same as downtown Seattle with the same population, 7 hospitals. Doesn't seem all that hospital dense.

If the city had denied permits to every hospital project based on complaints filed against them, you wouldn't have any hospitals in the downtown at all.

I don't get this heartless push. There are at least 4 hospitals within s 5 miles radius.

The point is that like Sacramento, there are MANY hospitals but unlike the City, there is alot of land available for expansion.

Mercy has a facility planned and Kaiser is in the process.

But the downtown is a medical center and that's the business model of your city. If you don't want a downtown, support tearing all the hospitals down because that's your choice.

It is MIDTOWN in an area of lovely homes, modest but well kept, elementary schools and little groceries. This is NOT DOWNTOWN, at all.

or closed. You don't want a hospital in midtown or downtown or whereever, don't have one. Earthquake regulations are all a scam, fine, tear all the hospitals down. Move them all out to the suburbs. Whatever the hell you want. Then whine about the sprawl AND whine about the abandoned downtown. When you did it to yourselves.

I'm originally from LA and KNOW that Earthquake guidelines ARE NECESSARY. Are you married to a developer or builder because your reaction are WAY OUT OF LINE with the thread. People who live in SACRAMENTO know the area and know what the conditions are. I wonder if you'd feel the same way if it were either you or your mother who was in the shoes of thise dear lady in Midtown?

Every last hospital in Sacramento, completely rebuilding due to earthquake regulations. All of them. I posted the articles. There isn't a damned thing wrong with me. Sorry the OP has a hard-on for the Catholic Church and is concocting all sorts of idiotic claims about their expansion. But it's no different than any other hospital in Sacramento, downtown, midtown, whatever. They don't want the hospitals rebuilt, fine. But people should know that's the alternative we're talking about here. ALL the hospitals have various construction problems.

Are you familiar with this area?

The hospitals are building also because of expansion. This is a wildly growing area and they are competing rabidly for health care dollars. It's all about profits not only earthquake regs.

Specialization being how they compete for dollars, which interestingly enough, is also how they avoid duplication and provide quality service to the community. When I made my first post, I sure didn't know the hospitals were rebuilding due to earthquake regulations. I didn't know that in the process of rebuilding, the different hospitals were expanding different specialized services to better serve Sacramento. I just made a simple statement about remembering hospitals do sometimes have to expand in order to serve the sick people and sometimes that means people get displaced. I didn't know all the rest that is going on in Sacramento because the OP conveniently omitted it all. Now call me a heartless asshole for bringing all the facts to the issue if you want to, but at least all the facts are here.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/15/1/39.pdf#search=%22sacramento%20healthcare%20economy%22

You bet I have a big problem with the Catholic Church. Perhaps the point has eluded you, that the HOSPITAL, the SCHOOL, and the CHURCH are ALL CATHOLIC! The Bishop has given this project his "blessing"! The Bloody Roman Catholic Church IS the Corporation!

As far as my "concocting all sorts of idiotic claims about their expansion", I beg you to point out one single instance of idiocy in any post I have made, or a single claim I have made which is not true.

From day one, we have asked only that they scale back their plans. That is all.

If the Church is making it a wedge, then every other hospital is too. That's one instance of idiocy, not to mention "they all LIE, the priests, the nuns" - and the "Bloody Roman Catholic Church" - and that nonprofits have to be corporations in order to be nonprofits, which you fail to mention.

You'd probably get further making your mother's case, in your community, if you weren't so hyperbolic about it. The world isn't made up of DU extremists.

I have lived in Sacramento for 22 years and there's all kinds of hospitals and clinics there. Why do they have to force this lovely lady off her beloved property?

Good lord. I do feel bad whenever roads or government buildings or hospitals or universities need to expand and homeowners are displaced. I feel equally bad when people using vacant lots as homes are displaced by construction. I suppose we could just skip any new construction and then blame the government when hospitals fall down on people in an earthquake. Or blame the government for not making sure hospitals were serving the community with the most modern facilities available. Some people will even choose trees over new medical facilities so you can't even say it would be easy for the hospital to purchase vacant land. This is the biggest fault of liberal groups, there's always some group objecting to any development by anybody; and there's always another group blaming government for the absence of service because the development didn't happen.

post but do you live in or near Sacramento? I do and know where these hospitals are and what's happening in the area. I'm a native Californian and my mom used to work for this hospital. In fact, both she AND I spent more time than we wanted to being treated. There is SO MUCH room in the county that's being used to build more shopping centres and houses that NOONE IS BUYING AT THE MOMENT. You cannot tell me that in order to be successful in their venture to retrofit there building, it
s absolutely necessary to force folks off of their land. My was the transcription supervisor in the UCSF hospital @ Parnassus right after the Loma Prieta Earthquake. They were not only retrofitting the hospital BUT were repairing the cracks in the alls from the earthquake and guess what? I never once saw or heard them telling hte neighbours that they would be taking their property to do this.

Frankly, I think the reason behind their desire to requisition the neighbouring properties has to do with some sort of competition with UCD who've expanded their facilities for at least a half mile down Stckton Blvd and they continue to acquire new land. They have a Courtyard hotel on their property and show no signs of slowing down in their expansion.

and tearing down the existing building to meet earthquake regulations. They all also have specific areas of expertise, which has been the trend in hospitals for at least 20 years now. You guys may all live there, but you obviously don't know what the hell is going on.

be as ignorant as others suspect you are. I don't understand why you need to come at me as if you're attacking me. My family is FULL OF doctors, dear. I have 3 cousins on staff @ UC Davis, 2 who have priviledges @ the parnassus facility and the sister hospital in San Francisco and that's just in this region of the state. BTW, UCSF @ Parnassus is nearly ground zero in the treatment and research for AIDS and other Immunological issues. I'm getting over a nearly deadly illness but will be going back to finish my degree and then onto med school with an emphasis on molecular origins of disease processes. I'm not stupid by any stretch of the imagination and do not appreciate someone coming at me with jingoistic barbs. You have idea what my particular bent is, politically and I find it distasteful that someone who is a member of DU would make idiotic comments that contains the word, "liberal" in the same manner that the idiots on another well known board does.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

It's attitudes like #17 that have poisoned this country. GREED and way too many ME FIRST attitudes! :puke:

The bottom line is that the OPs' mom is happy where she is and doesn't want to sell. Why in the hell should she?!

GREED has got nothing to do with it. It's a hospital.

What do you people think were there before all the hospitals and universities and roads and firehouses were built? Do you really believe all of this stuff was built on empty land??? It wasn't. Houses were bought, torn down, and new facilities went up. That's the way it works. None of this has anything to do with greed, it's got to do with providing services to communities.

I sincerely hope the OP's mom and neighbors can work something out to everyone's satisfaction. But nobody is kicking old people out of their homes due to corporate greed.

Greed is involved make no mistake about it.

And btw-just because this is how they've been doing it for years doesn't make it right and doesn't make it ethical. Get it? ETHICS?! It's attitudes such as yours that is what's wrong with America.

Those bastards can find land somewhere else if they want it so badly. Just why aren't they trying to oust people in the wealthy neighborhood nearby? Hmm? Because they know that would be an EXPENSIVE legal battle. :eyes:

and I can't understand why they wouldn't put it out there. They're building cookie cutter subdivisions all over the place and there is a boatload of room there. It seems to be a better thing to out there than those crappy houses.

Which liberals also bitch about.

But let's say all the hospitals move out to the cookie cutter subdivisions and leave the downtown residents alone. All the little restaurants and shops and repair businesses that served them move too.

Then what happens to the downtown?

NOONE IS BUYING them anymore.. THE ONES ALREADY BUILT ARE SITTING and the builders are offereing HUGE REBATES, giant plasma Tv's you name it. I have nothing against Coookie cutter subdivisions, if they're built up to code. Let me tell you about that, something which me and MANY of my heighbours know ALOT about. In fact, most of the owners, (thank God, I'm only renting while building my home on some land we own up north), are suing the builders of the homes they paid anywhere from 400 to 700K because their they now find themselves with foundations cracked, letting in insects from the outside, the stucco literally falling off IN CHUNKS; floors so sloped that not only do puddles form when mopping them but balls and other things roll from one side to the other side of the rooms; COLOSSAL plummbing problem, to the point of pipes literally splitting and causing flooding in the walls; movement or sliding of the lots which are BUILT OVER FORMER SWAMPS AND RICE PADDIES with infill. It's now moving and causing even more problems with foundations. I'm trying to hold my tongue and show my behind because it's unnecessary, considering that I never once addressed you in particular and certainly never disrespected in any way shape form or fashion. I see nothing wrong with placing a hospital out in North Natomas, seeing as how there isn't anything, not even a clinic for humans here in North Natomas.

Although I can't see why if nobody is going to live out there. And why would you want hospitals built on swamps and rice paddies in earthquake country anyway.

It's nice to feel empathy for a fellow DUer, it's not nice (or smart) to put the good of an entire community over one person though, even if it is a DUer's mother.

overpriced cookie cutter homes on land that was, until a few years ago, legally designated unbuildable. This is exactly why the powers that be are talking about catastrophic flooding issues, as there are now homes where there was previously nothing other than rice paddies and other farmland and if you'll notice, I said that there needs to be a HOSPITAL in that area, not just a clinic.

Hospitals can't just open facilities wherever they want to. And oh, by the way, that would be even more restricted under government directed single payer health.

It's so funny to me that you're doing exactly what I said but you can't even see it. You're objecting to the sprawl of these cookie cutter houses on land that they shouldn't be on - but you're also objecting to keeping services in their current locations to prevent further sprawl. Makes no sense at all.

mind anymore that I would know what's in yours. Hpw does my objecting to Mercy forcing a woman off her and and believing that building homes on swampland translate into objecting to keeping their services in the ame place? You must be getting me mixed up with another person you were arguing with. I never said that. what I said is that it doesn't make sense that they want to expand their hospital through forcing people off their homes. Franky, I don't understand why their needs to be more hospitals in that area. There are more hospitals than you can shake a sitck at. I've heard people say that that instead of river city, it should be called Clinic City. We have alot of hospitals for the population density. ALOT of Sacramento was Swampland, it sits at the confluence of 2 RIVERS!!! I have no problem with their moving to another area. If you were familiar with the area, you would understand why those of us who live here, say what we do.

They all very close to the area and provide better care anyway. Stay out of Mercy or any other CHW facility if for no other reason than inferior patient care.

And I don't even think there's a Kaiser facility in the state. And all you have to do is put Sutter Health in Google and it's page after page of complaints.

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=06-11-04&storyID=19033

http://www.sutterstrikersforpatientcare.com/why/briefonsutter.html

they are more ethical. They resolved the strike and did not use strong arm tactics against their employees. Kaiser is the most profitable and is also building an add on women's facility in Roseville, adding a hospital in Natomas and recently opened a clinic in Lincoln. This is a very competitive health care market. Kaiser has considerably cleaned up their act(probably due to this) and has a better reputation then it used to. The best way to find out about the inner workings of these places is ask nurses and docs who've worked for all of them. Personally I would never go to a CHW facility.

:hug: don't buckle to the bastards! :hug:

that Catholic Healthcare West is "the official health-care provider of the San Francisco Giants."

As if they don't have enough problems.

Your mom will beat the bastards. :thumbsup:

shone on man."

Benjamin Franklin:

"Lighthouses are more useful than churches"

John Adams:

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"

John Adams, in a letter to Jefferson:

"I almost shudder at the thought alluding to the most fatal example of abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamaties that engine of grief has produced"!


*All quotes from The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, p43

PS - I grew up in Davis. Heard many bad things about CHW.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

They fought SEIU hammer and tong, and CNA also. SEIU finally won collective bargaining rights only after years of litigation before the NLRB.

Notoriously anti-union as you said.

I take it you grew up on 39th? I grew up on J Street and still live in the neighborhood. I must have gone past your mom's house countless times. Small world.

Anything we locals, not immediately impacted by Mercy's plans, can do to help your mom?

You seem quite well informed...

There are several groups allied against the planned expansion. East Sacramento Preservation Task Force (ESPTF), East Sac Improvement Association (ESIA), and McKinley Elvas Neighborhood Alliance (MENA). Also, Parents United For Safety and Health (PUSH) have joined under the umbrella organization Neighborhood Groups Against Mercy Expansion (N-GAME).

Look for our distinctive black-on yellow lawn signs!

ESPTF, 5714 Folsom Blvd, PMB 169, Sacramento, CA 95819

I remember 20 years ago this guy at work said in an off-hand way, "oh, you go to St. Charles? That's my landlord!" I was so shocked...I had no idea the Catholic Church owned all these crappy apts. and collected enormous amounts of rent for them too.

More power to your mom. SHE SOUNDS SO AMAZING! I'm a gardener too with a tiny house on a huge lot (by L.A. standards anyhow) that I developers are already starting to look at. It's always gonna be a tiny house on a big lot as long as we have anything to do with it!!!

I stopped going to church at age 44 in 2004 because nobody had the guts to speak out against the war, and I started feeling like all the $$ I was giving was going to go to get perv priests and the like off the hook. I quit church and started giving the money to ACLU instead, they do more of Jesus's work than the church, IMO!!

I do believe the Catholic Church is the largest private landowner in... The World.

The reason these bastards gain so much power and real estate, is because they get to keep everything and give nothing back to the state. This way they can afford high paid lobbyists and lawyers who do great evil, like push through a law in California to protect pedophile priests by reducing the statute of limitations on molestation crimes. Someone I knew was molested as a child and her mother did nothing about it. When she reached legal age, she wanted to file charges herself against the molester, but was told that because of a new CA law backed by the Catholic church, the statute of limitations had run out. I'll check and see if I can find the bill.

Unfortunately in Bush's America they are doing it more often than not. I do hope your mother is able to keep her home.

Some people value their home more than money.

but it would be informative in determining if they are asking her to crawl away and die.

her gardens and she designed her life that way - on her terms - not on the terms of some corporate bully.

the Catholic Church and the hospital intend to screw over an elderly lady to get a hold of her land. If I am to accept that premise, I would need to know the offer.

NT!

Prop 13 protects her tax basis and unless the city gets involved, she can indeed stay there.

Note that I have not been following the laws in CA or in the Sacremento area since Kelo, so there may be some loopholes. Did California clamp down on emminent domain as some other have?

She can place it in an Irrevocable Trust with terms and conditions stated to
her liking and if ever the property is to be sold or dispersed after her death,
she can also specify where and how that is done as well.

I'm thinking this could be the easiest way around the pressure from the Church and Hospital
thugs, where she is effectively making her property a dead issue because of covenants and
Trust issues she's attached to the deed...She needs a good lawyer who wi;; take into consideration
her plight and build a 10 ft legal concrete wall around the property...something that will hold no matter what.

That's bullshit right there.

Props to your mom. We support her.

her guns and that we have her back. Keep us informed on what is going on. Sacramento isn't so far away for many of us to mount one heckuva protest.

They're an octopus--over 20+ years, they've managed to get entire blocks around the hospital razed and renovated to benefit themselves, including local landmarks like Lenny's Nosh Bar and the original Delta "Animal" House.

Why oh why are Catholic organizations always crying poverty? (Must be the molestation payouts.) I'm not talking the Franciscans, just run-of-the-mill ones.

Different group altogether. Although same situation, and if Sacred Heart hadn't kept emergency care downtown, I guarantee there would be outrage within 5 years that the street people and students and low income residents were abandoned in favor of catering to the suburbanites. And Eugene isn't anywhere near the size of Sacramento.

And so's you know, they just did $40,000 of heart care for my husband with absolutely not one question about payment. It will likely be covered by Bridge. Yes that's outrageous, but at least they don't make people wait until they're literally dying to treat them and their profits go back to the people.

Whomever is running the show has revealed over the past 50 years not the slightest hint of vision nor the merest crumb of decent land-use planning. On the 11 acres they already occupy sit an agglomeration of architectural monstrosities without any internal coherence nor the slightest nod to community standards. The entire plant is ugly nearly beyond description, from Mercy Plaza to the H Street parking structure. The landscaping is not even an afterthought - it is simply neglected, year after year, decade after decade.

They LIE - the priests, the nuns, the president of MGH, the PR group, ALL. LIE! To the community, the city, the engineers and planners, the neighbors, and every single soul who does business with them. Crooked, stupid, and inhumane.

3 years of negotiations turned out to be nothing but a front for their land-grab Three years of wasted breath and thousands of hours of work by dedicated professional and community activists shat upon without batting an eye.

and take a look at the Sutter facility. It is removed from the community, nice grounds and the entrance looks like a five star hotel atrium has a waterfall and plants, high ceilings, the works. Every room is private. Nice parking facility. They pour money into their facilities and they look nice. I only mention this because CHW is MORE profitable than Sutter so it makes you wonder, where does the money go?

allow me to welcome you to DU!!:hi: Secondly, do you think that one of the issues may be the fact that UCD is spreading like an amoeba up and down Stockton blvd? Lastly, what can we do, those of us who reside in Sacramento, to help?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2376792

Scary stuff indeed!

Very timely series, wouldn't you say?

What a disappointment it has been, to have been born under Pope John XXIII and to die under Pope Rottweiler.

ALL the hospitals have to meet the earthquake regulations. That's why they're ALL rebuilding and tearing down their own 1920's buildings. This is the complete opposite of what you posted, where secular agencies have to meet regulations that the religious groups don't.

and the world...

is thank you god for decent lawyers.