Should Emeryville and the East Bay be wary of Sutter Health's plan for a new hospital?
SEIU-UHW organizer Doug Jones questions Sutter Health’s intentions as the health care giant moves to replace Berkeley’s Alta Bates with a smaller facility in Emeryville
☕️MORNING BUZZ
—Sutter Health is planning a $1 billion, 1.3 million-square-foot medical campus in Emeryville, which will eventually include up to 200 acute care hospital beds.
The new facility is intended to replace Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, which will not meet seismic safety standards by 2030.
The project—which includes two medical office buildings in Emeryville and reuse of the Alta Bates site—brings long-awaited clarity to the future of healthcare in the Berkeley area. But not everyone is convinced.
Doug Jones, a longtime political organizer with SEIU–United Healthcare Workers West, has been raising alarms about Sutter Health’s transparency and true intentions during recent Emeryville City Council meetings.
Jones joins East Bay Insiders TV to discuss concerns about Sutter’s track record of building smaller facilities with fewer services, and to highlight a pledge from East Bay State Senator Jesse Arreguín to hold Sutter accountable—especially when it comes to engaging in good faith contract talks with union leaders.
—We're hitting pause on the written newsletter this week as we take a brief work vacation to recharge and finally tackle a long-running to-do list.
With so many city councils and local agencies on August recess, it’s the perfect time to regroup, refocus, and gear up for a busy fall season of reporting and storytelling.
But we’re not going completely silent.
New episodes of East Bay Insiders TV will be dropping daily through Thursday, and we’ll be back with a brand-new podcast episode on Friday to close out the week.
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