Last Friday afternoon, 5500 CNA/NNOC nurses of Sutter Health, the "Beyond Medicine" system, decided to strike the system again. On December 13th and 14th, Registered Nurses will hit the streets outside all 13 Sutter facilities in solidarity with each other, their lack of a decent contract and the closure of three of their sister facilities. One of those facilities is St. Luke's, where thousands of low-income patients will lose access to this great, acute care hospital.

The sad thing about St. Luke's is that it isn't unique for the United States, nor for San Francisco. Lots of our community hospitals and public health hospitals have closed, with some -- like St. Luke's -- run for awhile by huge corporations like Sutter. In Atlanta, the great Grady Hospital which has served the local African American community for decades, is slated to be closed. Grady Hospital is a great teaching hospital, and served the community in the bad old days of segregation -- when Black patients were turned away from white hospitals. The reason: little money for public health these days. Atlanta officials are debating about what to do if this happens.

In San Francisco, after a disastrous merger with private Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, UCSF lost Mt. Zion Hospital, another acute care facility. This bad idea had to be paid for, and Mt. Zion as an acute care hospital lost out to pay the fees in-cured from the break up. Yes, the clinics and so are the offices there. But the hospital, its ER, labor and delivery, oncology/AIDS units are all gone. Another community hospital destroyed by bad mergers and acquisitions.

The patients, doctors and nurses have been going to just about every committee and Board of Supervisors meeting they can think of. Special legislation for oversight of St. Luke's has been introduced at the Board by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. A special Session of the Health Commission convenes next Tuesday just on St. Luke's. The community sees St. Luke's as special, but not Sutter.

In the end, Sutter seems to be suffering from a severe hearing problem these days, and so the nurses decided to walk out again. I would also add they seem to be suffering from the lack of a heart and soul when it comes to caring about their patients. This community needs St. Luke's hospital. But Sutter doesn't seem to be listening or feeling it.

Sutter may be the "Beyond Medicine" people, but their behavior is "Beyond Belief".