Delta 6 East County Mayor's Group Meeting

Don Giacomini, Board Chair, Mary Erbez, Trustee and I attended the most recent meeting of the six East Contra Costa Mayor's and our East County Supervisors, Supervisor Glover and Supervisor Piepho.


We asked to speak to this group about problems with access to health care for the uninsured in East County. Despite the recent opening of a second Hospital, Kaiser Antioch, the uninsured continue to utilize the Sutter Delta Emergency Department in record numbers, rather than accessing the Counties clinics in Antioch, Pittsburg and Brentwood, or even the new Kaiser Antioch Emergency Department. For the month of December (the first full month Kaiser Antioch was open for business) AMR transported 55 uninsured patients to the SDMC ED while only 5 were delivered to the Kaiser Antioch ED!



Inappropriate use of our ER leads to longer wait times for the seriously ill and this disproportionate use of SDMC by the uninsured challenges the financial health of SDMC. We were pleased to present to the Delta 6 a number of recommendations to improve access to pre hospital and post hospital care by the underinsured as well as opportunities to improve the access to health insurance. We encouraged the Delta 6 group to act now. We can not afford to sit back and wait for a crisis to develop. Let's learn from the situation that led to the Bankruptcy of Doctors Medical Center in West Contra Costa County and not allow the same to occur in East Contra Costa County.


While we have discussed all of our recommendations previously with the County staff and with the leadership at Kaiser Antioch, we have been disappointed by the response to date. We were pleased with the committment of Delta 6 to organize a committee of healthcare leaders with a charge to find workable solutions to the health care access needs for East County residents.


For a copy of our presentation, please respond with your full name and email address.

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