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Caregivers across Humboldt County were notified today via email that after four years as chief executive of St. Joseph Hospital and Redwood Memorial Hospital, Roberta Luskin-Hawk is stepping down from her role with parent organization Providence, effective July 8.

Laureen Driscoll, chief executive of Providence’s northern California region, will serve as interim leader of the two hospitals while an executive search is conducted, according to the email. 

“I want to recognize and thank Roberta for her dedication to our mission and the residents of Humboldt County, and for her many contributions,” Driscoll says in the message. “She led with grace during a challenging time defined by the pandemic, labor negotiations, a consolidation of our maternity services, and rebranding of our hospitals.”

Providence-St. Joseph Communication Manager Christian Hill confirmed the news and said a press release will be issued shortly.

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UPDATE, 4:37 p.m.:

Here’s a statement from Providence-St. Joseph:

After four and half years of dedicated service, Roberta Luskin-Hawk, MD, chief executive for St. Joseph Hospital and Redwood Memorial Hospital, will leave Providence, as of July 8, 2022.

She plans to take a well-deserved personal break and spend time with family before pursuing the next chapter of her career.

“I am proud of what we have accomplished together in Humboldt County over the last four plus years,” said Luskin-Hawk. “We have some of the most committed boards, talented medical staffs and compassionate and resilient caregivers. It has been a pleasure to work with community partners and I look forward to hearing about continued enhancements of health care in Humboldt.”

As chief executive of our hospitals in Humboldt County, Roberta has been a steadfast leader, deeply committed to the community and has served our organization during incredibly challenging times.

Laureen Driscoll, who is the regional chief executive for Providence in Northern California, will step in as interim chief executive for Providence in Humboldt County while we conduct the search for Roberta’s successor.

Driscoll began her health care career as a nurse before moving to administrative leadership roles. Prior to joining Providence in 2021, she served as president of Tacoma General and Allenmore hospitals, part of MultiCare Health System in Washington state, for five years.

Press release from Assemblymember Jim Wood’s office:

Yurok Tribal Council Member Mindy Natt and her son Andrew James Lewis V. | File photo courtesy Yurok Tribe.

SACRAMENTO — Today, Governor Newsom signed AB 2176 by Assemblymember Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa), expanding the timeframe for Native American families to register the birth of a child. The new law will expand the timeframe for birth registration from 10 days to 21 days, honoring and accommodating the period of sacred ceremonial blessing and naming of the newborn.

State law currently requires registration of a newborn within 10 days of birth. Many Native American families follow a cultural tradition of not naming their newborn for 10 days and dedicating the tenth day to a sacred naming ceremony and this tradition does not align with current state law.

“Humboldt County is home to nine federally recognized Tribes and Rancherias and remain on their traditional homelands to this day,” said Wood. “These sovereign nations, and others throughout California, have their own specific beliefs, traditional practices and ceremonies and I am pleased that the state will respect Native American culture and tradition by allowing adequate time to complete the required registration process.”

In 2021, Providence Humboldt County initiated a “Better Birthing Project” with local tribes to build relationships and increase trust between St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and the Native communities it serves. A team of hospital staff and representatives from the Native communities conducted extensive interviews with Native parents to identify the challenges of and consider solutions to improve the birth experience.

“When life is brought into this world, it is a special time. Extending California’s timeline for registering new births from 10 days to 21 days allows Native American families to comply with state law and fulfill their sacred cultural naming traditions,” said Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland), the principal coauthor of AB 2176. “I applaud Assemblymember Wood for introducing this measure which makes our state more respectful of the state’s First People.”

“The many Tribes and Rancherias contribute so much to the culture of our state, and I have learned a great deal about their traditions and benefitted from their wise council over the years and this change in law respects such an important event in their lives,” said Wood.

Press release from Food for People:

Many community members are finding it harder to make ends meet as we watch food and gas prices rise. To help, Food for People will host seasonal Free Produce distributions this summer in Eureka, Fortuna, Garberville, and Redway. These free outdoor produce distributions will begin in Fortuna on June 22nd and Eureka on June 23rd, and in Southern Humboldt on July 12th. The Free Produce distributions will continue through October to ensure that everyone in these difficult times can have access to the nutritious, seasonal produce, and some pantry staples needed for good health.

Upcoming Free Produce Market Distributions:

• Fortuna Community Services
  Wednesday, June 22
  11:30am- 12:30pm
  *Drive-thru & walk-up
• Eureka Bayshore Mall
  Thursday, June 23
  11 am - 1 pm
  *Drive-thru
• Garberville Presbyterian Church
  Tuesday July 12th
  10:30 am-11:30am
  *Walk-up
• Redway Baptist Church
  Tuesday July 12th
  12:30 pm-1:30 p.m.
  *Drive-thru & walk-up

This program is available thanks to partnerships with California Emergency Foodlink, the California Association of Food Banks’ Farm to Family program, and CalFood Logistics.

Food for People, the Food Bank for Humboldt County, provides vital food resources for the community through hard times- from economic downturns to wildfires, and so many of life’s challenges. As pandemic assistance programs come to an end and food costs are on the rise many people are having a tough time putting food on the table. Food for People works to alleviate local hunger and improve the health of the community through its 18 programs and strong community partnerships. These programs include a countywide network of emergency food pantries; mobile produce distribution to rural areas of the county; food assistance for children, seniors, and homebound individuals; nutrition education; and local food recovery and gleaning efforts. Food for People distributes nearly 2 million pounds of food annually to the county’s most vulnerable members. For more information, go to www.foodforpeople.org or call (707) 445-3166.

Future Dates (same time and place)

Eureka: June 23, July 28, Aug. 25, Sept. 29, Oct. 27

Fortuna: June 22, July 27, Aug. 24, Sept. 28, Oct. 26

Garberville: July 12, Aug. 9, Sept. 13, Oct. 11

Redway: July 12, Aug. 9, Sept. 13, Oct. 11

A group of advocates that has long fought to reform the state’s troubled nursing home licensing system is now attempting to kill legislation it sponsored, calling the amended bill “a step backwards.”

“Instead of the major reform that the nursing home licensing system needs, AB 1502 now codifies and endorses the current system, a system that has nourished the worst operators in the state,” wrote Patricia McGinnis, executive director of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

Her strongly worded letter of opposition went to Dr. Richard Pan, chair of the Senate Health Committee scheduled to hear the bill this afternoon.

But the bill’s authors, and other elder care advocates, say the bill as amended still represents important progress in the state’s efforts to better regulate who owns and operates nursing homes.

Democratic Assemblymembers Al Muratsuchi of Los Angeles and Jim Wood of Santa Rosa, the bill’s co-authors, said Tuesday that they intend to move the bill forward, despite the new opposition from its sponsors.

And, even in the 48 hours leading up to today’s hearing, Muratsuchi said he was continuing to tweak key details in the hopes of finding a compromise that all sides could agree upon.

Reform advocates themselves are split. Dr. Michael Wasserman, a geriatrician and chair of public policy for the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine, said his organization supports the amended bill, which he views as “an incredibly positive step forward.”

Still, the about-face by California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform raises questions about the fate of a bill they had until recently championed as a way to overhaul the state’s nursing home licensing and ownership system.

Getting it this far has been a political battle, involving emotional hearings and strategic alliances.

Last year, a CalMatters investigation revealed an opaque state licensing process plagued by indecision, confusion and yearslong delays. Stories spotlighted the Department of Public Health’s controversial treatment of California’s second-largest nursing home owner, Los Angeles businessman Shlomo Rechnitz, and his web of companies. The department allowed Rechnitz and his companies to unofficially operate 18 Country Villa facilities for years while their license applications remained in “pending” status; in five Windsor homes, the state has allowed Rechnitz and his companies to operate facilities despite the state’s having outright denied their licensing applications.

The Department of Public Health has a wide range of nursing home responsibilities. In addition to licensing, the department is responsible for routinely inspecting the state’s 1,200 nursing homes to ensure they are meeting federal standards. It also conducts complaint investigations and can cite facilities for violating federal or state rules, and levy fines. Department representatives on Tuesday declined to comment on pending legislation.

The original language of the bill would have established strict suitability standards, including 10-year history checks for new owners, a public process for vetting them, and annual reports to the Legislature by the Department of Public Health.

The amended language takes out some of these provisions, has shorter history checks, and institutes smaller discretionary financial penalties in lieu of more significant ones.

But Wasserman said he believes the amended bill will still serve to increase transparency and allow the state to more effectively hold owners and licensees accountable. He feared that the bill as originally written could have been tied up for years in litigation, and might have proven difficult to implement.

And Muratsuchi, who has collaborated closely with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said he has worked in recent days to change certain language to address the organization’s concerns. He said some of the most important aspects of the original legislation remain intact. Specifically, it would close loopholes so that owners cannot buy nursing homes without first obtaining a license, and it would institute time limits so that the change of ownership process would not have yearslong delays, as has been the case with the Country Villa homes.

Muratsuchi said he’s trying to convince the advocacy organization that “even though it’s not exactly what we started with, that the essence and the substance of the original bill is, by and large, still in the amended version.”

The fight to fix the state’s broken nursing home licensing process has been gaining momentum in the past year. At a hearing last fall, Wood, who chairs the Assembly Health Committee, at times grew emotional as he questioned state officials.

“Where is the proactive, patient centered, public safety approach here?” he asked Cassie Dunham, an acting deputy director of the California Department of Public Health. “Where is that? Because I don’t feel it right now. And yet here we are. Here we sit. We have to wait for news articles. We have to wait for people to die.”

On Tuesday, his tenor toward the department had shifted.

“Making improvements in the licensing process for skilled nursing facilities is absolutely necessary,” he said in an emailed statement to CalMatters, noting that he is grateful for the department’s engagement and support.

“The legislative process, when it works well, takes feedback from all sides, and finds a way to move forward and, although it may not be the final position of any one stakeholder, it is progress and progress is the goal,” Wood’s statement said. He declined to be interviewed ahead of today’s hearing.

The industry has raised its own concerns about the licensing system.

In an email Monday, Corey Egel, spokesperson for the California Association of Health Facilities, an industry group, stated that the state’s change-of-ownership process “needs to be reformed to ensure the timely and expedited review of licensure applications so that licensure application requirements are reasonable with minimal disruptions to patient access to long term care services.”

He declined to say whether his organization backed the amended bill, but it has not registered official opposition.

The Assembly passed the original version of the bill in January.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Billy passed away on May 12, 2022 in Eureka after a long illness.

He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Susan F. O’Donnell-Burke, and his sister, Mrs. Angela Casey of Kildare, Ireland, and many nieces and nephews located in various parts of the world.

He was 85 years old.

Billy and his wife Sue moved to Trinidad in 1991, and lived there for 10 years. They moved to McKinleyville, where he was living at the time he fell ill, in 2001.

He was known for his gentle character and his great sense of humor. He was a skilled carpenter and tradesman and was a member of the Carpenter’s Union Local #22 in San Francisco where he lived for many years prior to moving to Trinidad. He loved everything about Humboldt County, and he enjoyed hiking in the woods and climbing Trinidad Head. He loved working outdoors and gardening and had worked as the groundskeeper for the Trinidad Volunteer Fire Department as well as the Salvation Army.

Billy came from a large family in Athenry, Co Galway, Ireland, and immigrated to the USA where he was sponsored by his uncle, Mr. William Burke of New York, in 1956. He moved to San Francisco not long after he arrived and enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he honorably served for four years at the end of the Korean War. He married his wife, Susan F. O’Donnell of San Francisco, where they lived for many years, in 1985.

Billy is greatly missed and it is requested that donations be sent to the Alzheimer’s Society.

May he rest in peace.

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Kay Kahl went home to heaven on June 15, 2022. She was born on September 27, 1939 to James and Virgina Suffran. She graduated from Napa High in 1957 and received her Business degree from Humboldt State University in 1962. On June 10, 1962 she married Jack Kahl in Napa. She and Jack moved to Eureka in 1977. After raising her three daughters, she proudly worked at Humboldt State Laboratory.

She adored her daughters Darlene, Debbie and Darsi and fiercely loved them with all her heart! She was also blessed with three sons-in-law: Craig Pasquini, Steve Strickland and Jaime Green. She doted on her grandchildren Morgan (Cory), Kaci, Travis, Joe, Jake (Liv) and Quinn (Hunter). Her great-grandchildren Huxley and Kinsley were the light of her life.

Kay never knew a stranger and everyone was welcome at her home. She loved to garden, drink a good pot of coffee, spend time with her friend, Sally Cloney, host candlelight dinners with her grandchildren, play the penny- slot machines, bask in the sun and eat a good prime rib. She looked forward to going to her Inverness trip with her class of 1957 girls, volunteering for the jazz festival and helping with pediatric cancer events. Her Murphy’s Market family was also dear to her heart, after shopping there for over 44 years getting all of her family’s favorite foods.

One of her delights was watching her daughters giggle until their stomachs hurt. She taught us all to believe in ourselves, know ones worth and to do the best with what you’ve got. She was her family’s biggest cheerleader and was selflessly at any event to cheer us on, no matter how far she had to go.

As her spirit left her body on June 15th, her buddy Huxley calmly said, “Gigi is home now.”

At last, she is free to twirl around and dance in a beautiful garden with the sun shining down on her sparkling blue eyes and her brilliant smile.

“If you look the right way, you can see the whole world is a garden.”

-The Secret Garden

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A recent COVID-19 outbreak forced Sempervirens, the only in-patient psychiatric hospital within a 300-mile radius of Humboldt County, to temporarily close its doors to new patients struggling with mental illness. 

A patient tested positive for the virus during routine surveillance testing at the end of May, according to the county Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Five additional patients and three staff members tested positive shortly thereafter.

“As [Sempervirens] is not licensed to hold someone with a contagious disease on the unit, Behavioral Health administration worked closely with Public Health and local hospitals and moved the six COVID-positive patients to local hospitals,” DHHS spokesperson Christine Messinger wrote in an email to the Outpost this morning. “…During the time the COVID-positive patients were at local hospitals, Behavioral Health staff spent time assisting them on-site.”

The patients who tested negative were able to stay at the facility and continue treatment, but the admission of new patients was put on hold while COVID-positive patients finished their quarantine. Admissions resumed this morning after approximately two weeks of no new cases.

During the quarantine period, the vast majority of individuals experiencing mental health issues were taken to the emergency department at Providence St. Joseph Hospital for treatment which led to a “significant impact” on hospital staff and resources.

“[Sempervirens] patients with COVID were referred to the hospital and admitted because they had nowhere else to go,” Dr. Roberta Luskin-Hawk, Chief Executive for Providence in Humboldt County, told the Outpost. “[Sempervirens] patients with COVID often stayed until they were no longer contagious, using beds that would have been used by other patients.”

Because Sempervirens was closed to admissions, patients in need of emergency psychiatric care “had to stay at the hospital unless they were able to be transferred out of the county,” Luskin-Hawk added. 

DHHS confirmed that one of the six COVID-positive patients was transferred out of the county for mental health treatment. One patient remains at the hospital “due to a medical condition,” two patients were stabilized and released to their families during the quarantine period and two others have returned to Sempervirens.

DHHS Behavioral Health Deputy Director Paul Bugnacki said the recent outbreak “demonstrated what our community would be facing if we did not have Sempervirens open for treatment for individuals who are having an acute psychiatric emergency.”

“Our staff have worked diligently throughout the pandemic to keep Sempervirens operational and COVID free for our patients. This continues to be a priority for us,” Bugnacki told the Outpost. “…Sempervirens is a critical element of our continuum of care for behavioral health services in our community and we want to preserve that.”

Previously:

• ‘This is a Crisis for Humboldt County’: St. Joe’s Admin Issues Call to Action in Response to Surge in Violence Against Hospital Staff