This public letter was contributed by the San Benito Health Care District Board member, Devon Pack. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent BenitoLink or other affiliated contributors. Lea este artículo en español aqui.

I was born at Hazel Hawkins Hospital, as were my sister and my cousins. It was the hospital that my grandparents and great-grandparents went to, ever since my family came to Hollister in 1912. When I first was elected to the hospital board in 2022, I often phrased my goal as being Hazel Hawkins 2122- that is, my mission was to ensure that Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital was continuing to serve the people of San Benito County a century from now, just as it had served the people of San Benito County for a century past     

Because while there are many routine medical issues that can be endured for the hour or more it takes to reach Salinas or San Jose, there are medical emergencies that won’t wait. An operating emergency room and a medical surgery center is literally a matter of life or death for all of our families. My aspiration is to see Hazel Hawkins Hospital survive but also to thrive, and for there to be a greater range of medical services offered there, so that people no longer need to commute across the Bay Area to deal with their health matters.        

We’ve made a lot of strides over four years at the hospital. We’ve gone from issuing a WARN act notice of layoffs and closing the home nursing division to record profits, and nearly one hundred days of cash reserves. It’s been a truly remarkable turnaround, and our leadership, including Mary Casillas, Mark Robinson, and Dr. Michael Bogey, as well as our many other excellent physicians, nurses, and staff, deserve incredible praise for managing the task of pulling our hospital away from insolvency.

But that does not mean that we are in the clear or that there aren’t significant challenges ahead. Inflation means that both pharmacy and equipment costs are rising steadily, while we struggle to replace older equipment in our labs. The hospital campus is old and new, unfunded state mandates for seismic retrofitting and security staffing will require us to face a considerable cost to keep the hospital legally compliant with new state laws. And there is the risk that the Secretary of Health could choose to play political games with Medicaid funding to the state of California, when roughly seventy percent of the hospital’s revenue comes from patients who are on MediCal or MediCare. 

In short, we need leadership that carefully evaluates the evidence available in order to make the best decision for managing our limited resources. We need persons on the board that have the patience and the diligence to reach out to and to listen to all sides of the community and then reckon that against the pathway that ensure the best odds for the long-term continuation of our community’s hospital. And that has always been always will be the compass of my calculation when it comes to Hazel Hawkins Hospital. I have demonstrated considerable independence during my time upon the board. I did not support the motion to make Mary Casillas a permanent CEO, because I wanted there to be more regular reviews and oversight of the CEO position. I have opposed hiring doctors where there are medical board disciplinary actions on their record. And I have used my legal and fiduciary training (I have a juris doctor degree and I am a licensed tax preparer) to continuously audit and analyze the revenues of our publicly funded hospital.

Hazel Hawkins will never be a perfect institution because it is a human institution. But we have made great advances in ensuring that Hazel Hawkins is getting every dollar that it is entitled to, whether in terms of billing or in grant money from the state and federal government. Patient’s likelihood to recommend Hazel Hawkins to others has also returned to a new high level, according to the most recent patient satisfaction report. Our rates of retaining staff at our hospital is higher than the national and Bay Area average. I’ve shown with my actions that I am not bound to any sense of obligation to be a rubber stamp for the leadership of this hospital. But at the same time, I go with the evidence, and the evidence is clear that we’ve made big positive improvements both in terms of how we save money, how we earn money, and how we make the patient experience better at Hazel Hawkins Hospital. As your representative to the San Benito Health Care Board, I will continue using my professional legal and financial experience to make sure that Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital is around to serve our County for the next 100 years, just as it has for the past 100 years.

I hope that I can count on your support, and I am always happy to speak with members of the public that I represent.

 G.W. Devon Pack

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