Paul F. Hoar
Peter Pollack
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Paul F. Hoar |
Peter Pollack |
This is the first of two stories on candidates for the El Camino Hospital District Board. This week, The Sun interviews Paul Hoar and Peter Pollock.
By KATHERINE PETERSEN
A district board will soon regain control of El Camino Hospital after four years of private management that everyone agrees has failed.
Just who will be elected to set the hospital's policies and oversee its budget is up to the voters, who must choose three trustees out of a field of four candidates who are running for seats on the district board.
Dr. Paul Hoar, Dr. Dominick Curatola and Peter Pollock are incumbents, and challenger Dr. Ed Baugh will try to win one seat. District board members serve four-year terms. The district encompasses Los Altos, Mt. View and the portion of Sunnyvale north of Fremont Avenue and west of Hollenbeck Road.
The district has an asset base of $14 million, including land. The district gives money to charitable activities, including immunization and other health-care programs for children. Board members also set policies governing the district and set salaries for hospital employees.
Hoar, who has worked as an anesthesiologist at El Camino Hospital for 13 years, seeks his second term on the board.
"As board president, I've worked hard with the other members day and night, trying to get the hospital back. We think this institution has been seriously hurt by the current management and has continued to lose money hand over fist. I want to be a part of restoring the hospital to what it once was," Hoar said.
Once financial information becomes available to the board, Hoar said the situation will be evaluated, and then the rebuilding process can begin. He added that it may take a year before the board knows where the hospital stands.
"I think the hospital will function well under public control. There are some people who want to sell the hospital, which I think is unwise and unwarranted," Hoar said.
While Hoar voted to transfer some money to Camino Healthcare after taking his seat on the board in November 1992, he was not a part of the board that voted to for the integrated delivery system the hospital took on under the leadership of Camino Healthcare. The hospital was transferred from the district to Camino Healthcare by a board vote on Oct. 31, 1992.
"The money was transferred before we knew that the people advising the board were also employees of the hospital," Hoar said.
After spending four years enmeshed in controversy, Hoar said he sees a light at the end of the tunnel and wants the chance to put his ideas to work for a successful hospital.
"After fighting to return the hospital to the public, I want to be able to continue to shape its future. I don't want to see the board haphazardly engage in another partnership with a bigger hospital in which the public would be excluded once again," he said.
The public will have to participate in the process of running the hospital and bring the board its input, Hoar said.
While Pollock has only been a board member since January, he said he has been instrumental in getting the hospital returned to public control from Camino Healthcare.
"After taking part in getting the hospital back, it's only fair that I should have to deal with it when we get it back. After all, the people who brought about the de-districting didn't stick around to see it through," he said.
Pollock was appointed to replace Dale Brown, who resigned from the board last October to protest the board's decision to pursue litigation against Camino Healthcare. Pollock is an attorney and manages the medical practice of his wife, Dr. Susan Hansen, a neurologist.
Pollock, too, believes the hospital can succeed without selling the institution or forming a new partnership.
"I see signs all around me that medical care has plummeted, and I think the public has finally caught on. If they want something good, they will have to pay for it, and I think they're willing to," Pollock said.
Pollock believes that El Camino Hospital will continue to compete with a high-level quality of care.
There are ways to reduce costs at the hospital, but cutting nurses' salaries is not the way to go, he added. Over the summer, nurses filed a claim of unfair labor practices with the Labor Relations Board against Camino Healthcare. The main disputes were over salaries and staffing ratios.
"We would increase those if I have anything to say about it," Pollock said.
The district will set the direction for the hospital's management, but the board itself would not be doing the day-to-day administrating of the hospital, Pollock said.
Both Pollock and Hoar have been endorsed by Ed Hawkins, a former administrator at El Camino Hospital and Professional Resource for Nurses, the union that represents the hospital's nurses.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, October 23, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.