LOS ANGELES - Health care providers from the county-run Glendale Health Center opposed the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors' misguided attempt to privatize the clinic last Tuesday, January 19.

Workers and their supporters spoke in support of the Health Center and screened a movie (above) demonstrating the extra cost such a move will have on the community.

The movie features interviews with Glendale Mayor Frank Quintero, LA City councilmember Paul Krekorian, Health Center staff and patients and details the negative effects closing the clinic would have on patients:

"Many are quite concerned because this is an established clinic that has been here for many years...and they've begun to cut services... (We) have a population that needs the medical care that this clinic provides."
-Frank Quintero, Mayor of Glendale

"(The patients) have developed long-term relationships of trust with their caregivers. I have deep concerns that if this Health Center were privatized those relationships would change...That would be a significant loss for access to health care not just for Glendale, but for people in the surrounding areas too."
-Paul Krekorian, Los Angeles City Council

"We are very close to patients, they are like our family and we have a history with them so we can take care of them better and more efficiently."
-Kyoung Bak, Registered Nurse, Glendale Health Center

Supervisor Michael Antonovich directed the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services to assess the viability of privatizing Glendale Health Center (GHC), a small county-run clinic in the Fifth Supervisorial District in 2008. Through detailed analysis SEIU 721 has demonstrated that privatizing GHC is not cost effective and would instead destabilize both patient care and other surrounding medical providers.

Snapshot of Glendale Health Center:
•    GHC has about 3,500 patients, mostly medically-underserved Armenian,  Farsi, Spanish, and Tagalog speakers
•    82 percent are uninsured and more than half are classified as elderly