Update: Seduced and Abandoned

Elderly Female San Franciscans are being forced out of County for skilled nursing facility care.

According to an unnamed source, a recent bed count by admitting physicians at Laguna Honda Hospital reveals a “significant drop in admissions of people over 70, especially women” in the past year.

There is a corresponding shift representing “a significant rise in admissions of people under 60, especially men.

"Women’s beds are being changed over to male beds.”

These admissions especially represent patients who require hospital care to heal from traumatic wounds or physical complications resulting from alcoholism.

Such an admissions pattern shift benefits San Francisco General Hospital by freeing up more beds in that facility. It does not benefit elderly San Francisco females who, as a consequence, are forced out of the City and County of San Francisco to find nursing home placement elsewhere.

In addition, compared to previous years, fewer Chinese elderly are being admitted to Laguna Honda Hospital. They tend to end up at Chinese Hospital and St. Francis Hospital instead of San Francisco General Hospital whose patients get admission preference at Laguna Honda.

In place of the “medical/protective care” model traditional for the frail elderly, a new "social rehabilitation" model is being introduced at Laguna Honda Hospital targeting an under-60 population.

The unnamed source sees social rehabilitation programs as a way to facilitate people reaching their full potential.

However, they worry that the reasonable expectation of Laguna Honda Hospital as a place for all San Franciscans is being undermined.

They fear that Laguna Honda Hospital has suffered by becoming “an extension of the defunding of public health” to make San Francisco General Hospital run “efficiently.”

They express concern that, without asking anyone, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Public Health Director, Mitch Katz, et al, have decided that, even though in 1999 voters approved a $300 million bond measure, San Francisco cannot afford to provide protective skilled nursing facility care for its frail elderly.