Petaluma Health Care District rebrands as ‘Healthy Petaluma’

What was once the Petaluma Health Care District now has a new name, new look and new website – and, to a degree, a new function.

The rebranded Healthy Petaluma District & Foundation was announced Monday along with a retooled website, healthypetaluma.org. The entity behind the new name is still the same public health care district, dedicated to improving access to medical care in Petaluma Valley, its leaders said.

But the district has also boosted its philanthropic mission, seeking to raise and disperse federal and other dollars on a scale that could improve health care services in Petaluma Valley for generations to come, said district CEO Ramona Faith and board member Elece Hempel.

In a Friday interview with the Argus-Courier, the two district leaders elaborated on the new roles Healthy Petaluma will seek to play, discussing changes they say were in the works even before the district sold Petaluma Valley Hospital to health care giant Providence two years ago for $52.6 million.

That sale, which the district endorsed and voters approved, included a contractual obligation by Providence to keep the hospital’s award-winning Family Birth Center open through 2025. Despite that commitment – and amid community protests and denunciations by district leaders – the health care giant has announced plans to close Petaluma’s OB unit on May 1.

The announcement has further riled the health care district’s board, which had already voted to reject Providence’s proposal to close the unit. Since then the board has been exploring its options, and on April 21, it held a closed-door session to discuss them – including, according to the meeting agenda, “Anticipated litigation.”

Faith and Hempel would not elaborate on the closed-door meeting, but Faith said it did produce a consensus.

“All five board members want to make sure that everything is done to at this point reopen the (OB) unit,” she said.

Faith and Hempel said the board gave further direction to their legal team and to an ad hoc committee currently negotiating with Providence over the OB unit.

Still, she added, “If they don’t have staff to keep it open, there’s no way we can force them to keep it open.”

Nurses and others have accused Providence of actively working against Petaluma’s Birth Center by moving its OB staff to other hospitals it owns such as Santa Rosa Memorial, and by not making an effort to bring in more anesthesiologists and obstetricians. Hempel voiced similar concerns, wondering why the available professionals she sees don’t seem to be considered to fill staffing holes.

“They speak at our meetings,” she said of anesthesiologists, one of the roles most in need. “Providence leadership hears that. … I’d be following them out the door. It baffles me.”

Leaders of Petaluma Staff Nurse Partnership, a union for Petaluma Valley Hospital nursing staff, have also expressed dismay at Providence’s closure of the OB unit, and are planning to protest at the front entrance of the hospital on Monday, May 1 from 4 to 6 p.m.

In a Tuesday news release, the group invites caregivers and all other community members to join them at 400 N. McDowell Blvd. in order to “maintain women’s services here at PVH that serve the Petaluma community and to ensure the safety of every mom and baby that may present to PVH.”

The district’s ad hoc committee dedicated to the issue is next meeting on May 5. “We’ll probably have more information” after that, Hempel said.

Whatever happens, the rebranded district says it is keeping its obligation to hold Providence accountable.

Healthy Petaluma’s website includes a “What we do” section that states, among other things, “We work with the Petaluma Valley Hospital operator” – Providence – “to seek compliance with its obligations under the hospital Asset Purchase Agreement.”

“Are we going to be birddogging them like crazy?” Hempel said. “You betcha we are. And we’re not going to let them make moves like they did on the birthing center for anything that’s out there for 20 years.”

Under the purchase agreement, Providence is obligated to keep essential hospital functions, such as the Emergency Department, open and running for at least 20 years after the Jan. 1, 2021 purchase date.

Foundation’s support

Established in 1946 to provide health care for veterans returning from World War II, the district has been dedicated to “improving the health and well-being of southern Sonoma County through leadership, advocacy, support, partnerships and education,” according to its website.

Unlike most special districts in California, it never put in place a property tax to support the hospital, and does not collect taxes currently.

The most substantive byproduct of the rebranding, Faith and Hempel said, is the addition of the Healthy Petaluma Foundation, with the hope of major changes to improve health care access and funding for local patients.

“This is a good thing for our community,” Hempel said.

The foundation will seek to bolster the region’s smaller health and wellness organizations – church groups or small nonprofits, for example, many of which are underfunded and serve the most vulnerable populations.

“This gives them capacity to be part of a partnership,” Hempel said. She added, “It’s a realization of something that we’ve been … talking about since 2011,” when Faith became the district’s CEO.

The foundation has a precedent just up Highway 101: Since 2001, the Healthcare Foundation Northern Sonoma County has invested over $23 million in community health in that region, taking in Healdsburg, Cloverdale and Windsor.

A Providence affiliate also took over the former Healdsburg District Hospital in January 2021, following a voter-approved sale from the same November 2020 election as Petaluma’s hospital deal.

In Petaluma Valley, the district is hiring outside experts to help determine gaps in service within the district’s boundaries – which extend from Cotati and parts of Rohnert Park south to the Marin County line – and use that information to improve the region’s overall health care services.

Hempel, who is executive director of the nonprofit Petaluma People Services Center, said her organization regularly supports smaller groups providing important services such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

But the new foundation, she said, can take that to a new level.

“Petaluma People Services Center ends up having to backbone a lot of small initiatives in our community, in part because we’re big enough that we can do that. … Our dream is that the Healthy Petaluma Foundation starts to become that backbone to bring together partners that go after additional dollars, big dollars.”

For now, Faith noted, “The focus out of the gate for the foundation is the grant-giving process, and soliciting large grants. We’re not going out with major fundraising campaigns right now. That’s more down the road.”

The foundation’s grant program, according to a news release, “will provide opportunities to local nonprofits and organizations seeking financial support to improve health and well-being. As well, the foundation helps cross-sector partnerships within the community secure large governmental and private grants.”

Foundation aside, the Healthy Petaluma district gets its income from property that it owns and from programs such as CPR classes, as well as interest from the $52.6 million acquired from Providence for the hospital sale, Hempel said. That money does not go to the foundation, she added.

Whether the $52.6 million will be invested in other ways remains a question. “There’s a lot of conversation as far as business development,” Faith said. But she and Hempel described it as a nest egg, and said it should help keep the health care district – one of only a few dozen in California – financially viable for generations to come.

“If you have an endowment, you can spend your interest, but you’re not going touch that endowment, unless something goes really awry,” Hempel said.

Don Frances is editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at don.frances@arguscourier.com.