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This information is provided by the candidate
Dear Marin Voters,
I am running for a seat on the Healthcare District Board because this next Board will make decisions and set policies that will impact health care services locally for decades to come. I am a public health advocate and am committed to making sure that Marin General Hospital will be able to provide high quality care to meet our community's health needs. With our hospital at last coming back to community control, we will have the opportunity to see that the hospital is run for the benefit of the community instead of for the benefit of a private corporation, as has been the case for the past 20 years.
Marin is a lucrative healthcare marketplace. We have many well-insured residents and only a small percentage of uninsured residents. This `payer mix' is why Marin General Hospital has always been a profitable hospital and will, according to the nationally respected healthcare consultants of the Lewin Group, continue to be financially viable once Sutter leaves.
What we need now are energetic and dynamic Healthcare District Board members that will:
- Hire a Proven Healthcare CEO to Recruit & Lead a Top-Notch Management Team -just like the other successful healthcare districts do- to manage Marin General Hospital and ensure the best quality of care when it returns to local control
- Substantially increase the range of available treatment options (including upgraded trauma care, a stroke center, state-of-the-art heart surgery options, minimally-invasive surgery units, home care, and District outpatient clinics in Marin City and elsewhere).
- For KAISER members, eliminate Marin General's exorbitant fees and price-gouging for locally-available trauma and emergency care, and for cancer radiation treatment.
- Make MGH earthquake-safe, while adding a new wing.
- Make MGH a "GREEN" hospital, implementing environmentally sustainable practices to improve infection control, minimize toxics far below the customary standard, minimize waste, and save money.
- Reduce staff stress and improve morale by staffing MGH with sufficient numbers of fulltime (not "traveling") nurses and other licensed staff.
- Reach out to doctors and nurses, Kaiser, UCSF Medical School, Dominican University, College or Marin and Marin County government to restore partnerships abandoned during the past 15 years and to build new ones.
- Increase health education and holistic medicine options, and collaborate with providers of alternative healthcare.
- Create a unified, cooperative, functional District Board responsive to public input.
- Partner with the County and key stakeholders to conduct a community needs assessment to determine what services will be needed by Marin's aging population
- Create Healthcare District Board committees to involve many more residents in providing expertise and recommendations to the Board
- Work with the County to ensure that competing healthcare providers are not able to siphon off all of the profit-making services from Marin General that help provide the money to fund other needed community health services, such as trauma and psychiatric care, that are not profitable
- Never sell our Hospital nor lease it to another large corporation.
Kathleen Russell, Jonathan Frieman, and I, Jennifer Rienks, are the only candidates committed to these goals. Thank you for your vote.
PS - For more information on our platform, please visit Friendsofmarinhealthcare.org.
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