Mar. 19, 2012 | The fight to keep St. Rose Hospital afloat will go on without Michael Mahoney. The Hayward hospital’s long-time chief executive offered his resignation last Friday, according to a hospital source.
Despite repeated efforts over the past nine months by Mahoney and the hospital’s board of directors to secure funding and support for keeping the struggling facility open, his ability had been severely questioned as of late by numerous county officials.
As Mahoney’s myriad number of plans had drifted aimlessly of late. Mahoney had asked the Eden Township Healthcare District for a $3 million loan last year before proposing a merger of both entities. Just weeks later, he proposed nearly the same plan to the nearby Washington Township Health Care District in Fremont.
His departure may have also been hastened by disclosure last week that it was Mahoney who first personally reached out to the villifed Prime Healthcare. Many in the county, including Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan, have publicly abhorred the inclusion of Prime as a potential suitor for St. Rose, if it were to descend into bankruptcy.
The writing may have also been on the wall last week when Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson pointedly charged Mahoney with lying to the board of supervisors last year regarding the true health of St. Rose. During the board meeting, the county’s health care services agency had proposed adding county support to the Washington Township plan to rescue St. Rose.
The county approved $2 million in short-term funding Mar. 13 for the hospital. But, the chief turnaround officer appointed by the county to help St. Rose regain stability told the board of supervisors the facility would need nearly $18 million to sustain itself over the next 6 months. Even then, according to the officer, St. Rose would need a monthly subsidy of between $800,000 and $1 million in addition to the initial chunk of funding.
With the county coffers and patience, already stretched thin, it apparently became clear this weekend that the board of supervisors would only begin dealing with the growing St. Rose problem on their terms and starting without Mahoney at the helm of the sinking ship.
ebcitizen.com 
Michael Mahoney has now set his eyes on another profitable opportunity – ALAMEDA County Fair, he is looking to take over as the CEO of this organization. Maybe he can run it into the ground like he did St. Rose Hospital. If the board of directors at the Alameda County Fair have their heads on straight, they won't look twice at this unbelievable man who only looks out for his own bank account when it comes to running a company! Good luck Alameda County Fair – you'll need it if you hire Michael Mahoney as your CEO!!
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This is a small minded bigoted hospital that should close. They should investgate this place for mismanagement or out and out thieft of money. It was run like a private club for way to long by michael and his cronies.
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Now WHHS is not supporting St. Rose; as they are woefully in deep debt; much more so than WHHS wants or can handle; doesn't look good for St Rose. The JPA will most likely disband. JPA Meeting was yesterday, I'm not finding any news on the meeting as of yet.
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I have to agree that it looks like the time for a complete change in leadership. The CEO resigning is a start, but it looks like the only thing that can save the hospital is a complete overhaul.
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There comes a time when everything needs a good cleaning out. St. Rose is no exception. The board and all the folks at the top need to be kicked out. It will cannot remain viable with the any of the status quo. Get rid of them all!
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Wilma Chan has totally messed up Alameda County and our safety net. She and her chief Dong has completely lost the trust of Hayward and our health care system because they are unable to negotiate. Chan has done terribly as the chair in the last six months.
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Yes, I seek to identify the motivations that create people's actions and statements.
Therefore, I can see that you are so blinded by your hatred of unions that you are unwilling to deal with some facts:
– How much longer would the ER lines be at Eden, Highland, St. Rose and other hospitals if you got your wish and the 27,000+ patients who use the SLH ER each year were forced to go elsewhere? How much unneccessary pain and inconvenience would you and your family go through from the extra hours of waiting?
– Have you heard of the “Golden Hour”? How many people would die because ambulances would take many more minutes to find an ER which is not officially on bypass (temporarily unable to recieve more ambulances)?
– The economy is improved when more people make more money. Health care providers and other workers in unions make more money and have better benefits and job protections than those who have no union protections. This improves the economy because it means that more people have more money to spend at local businesses. Having a contract also allows caregivers to fight for better patient care standards without the overwhelming fear that they they could lose their job from opposing management policies.
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My mother taught me to look past the words used and check out the true reasons. Protecting people is just crap. It's about making sure unions get their dues. You are just fooled by the left wing union bosses. Who are becoming extinct.
Didn't your mother tell you to be more thoughtful. Logical? Think about motivation and where the money goes.
Saying that people will die if SLH closes is BS. They die there now cause of poor care. Perhaps they'll be sent to a better hospital with better care just 5 miles away in Castro Valley.
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Close SLH and you kill people and cause them to suffer needlessly; perhaps that's important, Anonymous.
By the way, in this economy we should be concerned about jobs, particularly jobs with decent wages and benefits, compensations which union members often gain. Those jobs allow the worker to have disposable income which can be spent at local businesses. If everyone is paid poorly, no one will be able to afford to shop at San Leandro-owned businesses. Instead, it's Wal-Mart and the Dollar Store for the lot of us. I don't want San Leandro to continue down that road.
I know the right-wing and their media servants are slowly conditioning us all to forget the Golden Rule and have no concern for the people in our own communities, but didn't your mother teach you better than this, Anonymous? Rooting for the closure of a hospital because it would hurt union membership? That makes no sense.
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Everyone knows (except the person above) that Carole is a mouthpiece for the unions. She doesn't care about the patients just her union bosses. Close SLH and you cut off union dues to CNA, etc.
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What is it about Rogers that bothers our former Mayor so much? His criticism here is irrational.
Carole's diligent actions to help the Healthcare District recruit alternative operators for our Hospital were among the most important factors which won her re-election in 2010. She has hung in there over the years as a new and improved Eden Board majority has been established. So…
1) By Tony's flawed rationale here, he should be calling three or four Eden Board Directors “wrong”, not just Rogers, yet he names no one else. What's up with that?
2) Note that Carole and the Board established negotiations with Prime or St. Rose but did not conclude deals with either. Perhaps we can respect the District's skills in declining to make a final deal with these flawed suitors while under stressful circumstances.
3) In the same 2010 election which saw Carole win her race, Santos was booted from the Mayor's office. She was running on her aggressive record to keep SLH open; he was running in no small part on the same kind of pessimistic, helpless rhetoric that you can read here. The public has rendered its verdicts.
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This story is absolutely incredible; I thought something was wrong when Mahoney hit up Eden township district for a loan. And now we see why. St Rose nearly bankrupt. Lucky for Eden the merger did not go through; I presume if it had, eden would be the one in trouble and not st rose by itself. When I met with Mahoney in 2009 to discuss operations at San Leandro Hospital, he never mentioned his own financial difficulties. And was it not Carole Rogers pushing not only the Prime merger back in 2009 but the St rose merger recently? carole was wrong then and still is today. She owes all of us an apology. Tony Santos
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County , public and adjacent hospitals expect St Rose to give free ride as usual for indigents, illegal immigrants, medical and medicare patients without footing the bill . St Rose cannot operate without public agencies not footing the costs any longer. It needs to become a public hospital or a private hospital. It cannot operate as a hybrid business model. It has to be either acquired by Prime Health to run in a business model or it needs to become semi public entity and merge with either Eden healthcare district or Washington hospital health care district. None of the healthcare districts or the county wants to takeover the hospital. They want to run it as as usual which is not possible
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The statement made by the interim CEO to the Board of Supervisors was actually the bankruptcy attorneys who suggested Mahoney contact Prime. It's on the record posted on their Internet.
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The comment above is completely wrong, and false- “it was HFS Consultants, hired by the County, who suggested Mahoney contact Prime Health.”
I've read the report.
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Can some one tell me the last year st. Rose actualy made a profit?
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# Volunteer my time?? I work at St. Rose…Highland is ranked one of the most inefficient hospitals in the state, that's they're problem not St. Rose. If it takes legal action in whatever form to recover revenue then so be it. St. Rose see's more indigent patients than Highland so there's the ground work. About 8% to 9% of our patients have no insurance, I say get the funding to cover them.
St. Rose has notoriously low reimbursement somewhere in the mid $24oo per patient, this is amoung the lowest in the state, this needs to improve. GAME PLAN.
Lastly just because one is dedicated does not mean that they are the best fit for the organization. Leadership is what we need, this is the time when leaders rise. This has not happened at this hospital in many years. These problems don't spring up overnight, they are a combination of disasters leading to a collapse. I'm smoking grade a reality how about you !!! #
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“New game plan to bring in revenue?”
What are you smoking? If the County would reimburse St. Rose its due share of the cost of taking care of their indigent and uninsured patients/responsibility, we would not be in this mess. Instead, inefficient Highland Hospital eats up the lions share of the revenue for them. And where do hospitals get revenue? Medicare, Medi-Cal, private insurance and CMAC. Plus handouts from any sympathetic source. Not manna from heaven. Wear the St. Rose Board's shoes for a while, and volunteer your time to keep this hospital open! These are bright, intelligent and dedicated people.
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# As this story rolls out it is abundantly clear that the board of directors are as impotent in their positions as Mahoney was and needs to follow his lead. Now Mac Nakayama needs to take the lead and ask each one for their resignation immediately.
Who contacted Prime (cold shiver up spine) is not that important. The important thing is that everyone knows that it was a horrendously bad idea for this area. As long as Prem Reddy stays sulking while circling the bay area in his helicopter woundering what could have been, that is the important thing.
There needs to be a long term plan to stop St. Rose from hammering the bottom of the sea like the Titanic and rise again with a new game plan to bring in the revenue that this hospital rightly deserves. This is the only way that the survival of St. Rose will be secured. We cannot depend on handouts in order to stay in business. #
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According to the taped recording of the Board of Supervisors meeting last week, it was HFS Consultants, hired by the County, who suggested Mahoney contact Prime Health. The Supes were just blowing smoke for theatrical effect.
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