The Importance of the Sequoia District to the Health of Our Community

By Kathleen M. "Katie" Kane

At this time, under my leadership, the District supports two medical clinics. First, we partnered with Samaritan House to provide a free medical clinic. The Clinic is primarily staffed by volunteer physicians, dentists' nurses and others, that provides primary and specialty medical care including vision and dental care, to more than 3500 uninsured patients yearly. The District also provides $1.8 million to fund the Fair Oaks Clinic in partnership with the San Mateo Medical Center. In fiscal year 2007 the clinic had over 21,000 adult visits for primary medical care, prenatal care and management of chronic illness. Based on $3,540.00 per patient, the District funds cover over 470 uninsured individuals each year.

The District supports the "Children's Health Initiative," a collaborative effort to reduce uninsured children (up to 18 years of age) in San Mateo County. The number of uninsured children in the County fell from 18,000 to less than 3,000 in the past few years.

Annually, through our Community Grants Program, we recognize and support vital roles our community health agencies play in maintaining and improving individual's health. These Programs provides funding to an array of health-related programs promoting physical and psychological well-being to our constituents.

Sequoia Healthcare District has created a unique partnership with Canada College, San Francisco State University and Sequoia Hospital to educate and promote a supply of registered nurses for our community. The District underwrites the Sequoia Hospital/SFSU Satellite Program at Canada College in the amount of $1 million per year. Since its inception in 2006 this partnership graduated approximately 120 registered nurses.

In 2007, the District committed up to $75 million to Catholic Healthcare West's project to reconstruct Sequoia Hospital. In exchange, CHW made a number of commitments to complete the reconstruction and continue providing hospital care to our community for decades to come. CHW also agreed to share hospital revenues with the District, if certain conditions are met. The District will be monitoring the reconstruction's progress and CHW's compliance with the commitments, and will continue to work to see that our community receives excellent hospital care.

In today's tumultuous budget process, health care funding is in serious jeopardy. The services funded by Sequoia Healthcare District are more vital that ever to assure the health needs of our constituents are met.

I urge you to vote for me so the District can continue its vital work to assure a healthy community