Workers say that overcrowding and staffing shortages at the UCSF Parnassus emergency room are putting patients in unsafe conditions, with many receiving care in hallways or on the waiting room floor.

As Mission Local reports, staff members say conditions inside the emergency department at University of California San Francisco Medical Center at Parnassus Heights have deteriorated to the point where patients wait hours for treatment. In some cases, patients suffer medical emergencies while beds sit unused due to staffing shortages.

Workers describe a growing gap between UCSF’s reputation as a premier hospital and what they say is happening inside the ER, where overcrowding and understaffing have become routine.

Concerns about conditions inside UCSF’s emergency department aren’t new. Back in 2023, nurses at UCSF Health told the San Francisco Standard that overcrowding and understaffing had pushed the ER into what some described as “war zone” conditions, with patients reportedly waiting days for beds and being cared for in hallways or even on the floor.

At the time, 125 charge nurses submitted a petition to hospital leadership saying they could no longer provide safe patient care under existing staffing conditions. The demands included more staffing support, better patient flow, and additional emergency resources.

In 2025, a report from the Chronicle found that UCSF was among the city’s worst hospitals for ambulance offload delays, with emergency patients often stuck waiting far beyond the state’s 30-minute transfer target before entering the ER system.

Now, many frontline workers believe the situation has only deteriorated further. According to Mission Local, providers now describe critically ill patients waiting hours for treatment, hallway beds functioning as semi-permanent care spaces, and mounting fears that delays are contributing to preventable harm.

“We’ve had several cases where patients have seized in the ER that are 100 percent preventable,” said one provider. “All the times are because of medication delays, and the delays result in them having a seizure.”

A major issue cited by Mission Local is “boarding,” where admitted patients remain stuck in the emergency department because no inpatient beds are available upstairs. Workers say this leaves ER beds occupied for days at a time, creating a bottleneck where incoming patients pile up in waiting rooms or are treated in makeshift spaces.

The outlet details the story of an elderly woman who came to the ER with a pulmonary embolism and was forced to spend three days in a bed in the hallway. Another patient fainted on the floor, and workers treated him on the ground because there weren’t any beds.

The report notes that California law limits emergency nurses to four patients each, but providers claim staffing levels have dropped dramatically in recent years, leaving parts of the ER effectively unusable despite demand continuing to climb.

“Imagine our frustration when we see 10 beds that are open, where a patient could be and have a private space, but we don’t have enough staffing for them,” one provider told Mission Local. “We have the capacity to take care of more people.”

UCSF leadership has reportedly acknowledged the problems with long waits and overcrowding, but they say the problems reflect a broader national emergency care crisis affecting hospitals across the country.

Still, multiple workers pointed to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital as a comparison, saying the public hospital is better staffed and more effective at moving admitted patients upstairs.

At the heart of the problems could be simple dollars and cents. Since Suresh Gunasekaran became president and CEO of UCSF Health in 2022, the system has reportedly swung from a $116 million loss in 2023 to an $809 million surplus in 2025, alongside major revenue growth and expansion.

Residents and physicians have reportedly organized petitions and rallies calling for more nurses and safer staffing levels, arguing that a world-renowned medical institution should not be operating with what they describe as collapsing emergency care conditions.

Related: UCSF Expands Again In Mission Bay

Image: UCSF/Google Maps

Kaiser Permanente is preparing to submit plans to the city for the company's first new hospital in San Francisco in over 70 years, and it would replace its existing hospital at Geary and Divisadero.

The new 14-story Kaiser hospital, which would rise across Geary Boulevard from the existing one, would have an expanded emergency room, 300 private in-patient beds, and about 623,000 total square feet, as the Chronicle reports, and construction could be complete by 2033.

The new project would not impact Kaiser's other SF facilities in Mission Bay or the Inner Richmond, officials say, and the existing hospital at Geary and Divisadero would continue to operate as usual throughout the construction. Ultimately, the 239-bed hospital that was built in 1954 would be converted into medical offices.

Plans for the hospital were presented at a community meeting Monday at Kaiser's Geary Boulevard campus, ahead of a submission of plans to the SF Planning Department next month. Part of the land that will be constructed on, at the corner of Divisadero and Geary, was a former gas station that has in recent years served as a community garden — and at least one area resident, per the Chronicle, said it wasn't the best use of the land.

The remainder of the site of the new hospital includes a medical office building and two parking garages.

In a statement to the Chronicle, Kaiser's senior vice president and area manager for the Golden Gate Service Area, Abhishek Dosi, says, "We’re really excited about the possibility of doing this," adding that the company is only "at the beginning of the beginning" of the process.

Still, the design process appears to have been underway for some time, by architecture firm Perkins & Will. This will be Kaiser's third all-electric hospital, after similar facilities that have been built in Sacramento and San Jose.

Kaiser Permanente, which is a non-profit, integrated managed care health system, was co-founded in Oakland in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield in order to serve the healthcare needs of workers at Kaiser's steel mills, shipyards, and other companies. While each territory's Kaiser medical group operates as a for-profit partnership, they are funded by the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, which has grown into one of the largest nonprofits in the nation.

Kaiser serves around 245,000 patients in San Francisco alone, and 12.6 million across nine states and the District of Columbia.

Kaiser's new hospital plans come a decade after competitor CPMC/Sutter Health began constructing its new state-of-the-art hospital on Van Ness Avenue — which saw its first patients arrive a year before the pandemic, in March 2019.

If all goes well with permits and approvals, Kaiser plans to begin construction on the new facillity by late 2028.

Previously: Kaiser and Healthcare Workers Reach Tentative Deal, Ending Largest Healthcare Strike In U.S. History

US News & World Report will start disclosing which hospitals pay for rankings in its “Best Hospitals” list after an investigation by SF City Attorney David Chiu’s office. Chiu also published an op-ed in the publication criticizing its ranking methodology.

As KRON4 reports, Chiu didn’t hold back in his August 29 op-ed in US News & World Report. “While U.S. News has represented itself as an expert in hospital rankings, I have had significant concerns about perverse incentives created by its ranking methodology,” Chiu writes.

According to a press release, Chiu’s office began investigating the publication in 2023 and subsequently discovered at least one hospital paid $42,000 for a “Best Hospitals” badge, which was never disclosed — a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The press release states that US News also offers paid options for “Featured Hospital” placement; advertising on the outlet’s website and in its Best Hospitals guidebook; and access to micro-data relating to US News’s rankings.

When US News neglected to respond to a 2023 letter from Chiu (PDF), his office sent two subpoenas in January 2024 (PDF) requesting documents and information from the publication. US News then filed a lawsuit claiming the investigation was in violation of its First Amendment rights, which was later dismissed.

The parties came to an agreement in April of this year, in which US News agreed to include a disclaimer on any webpages that earn revenue from hospital rankings.

“Consumers use these hospital rankings to make consequential health care decisions, but at the outset of our investigation the company did not disclose as required by U.S. law that it received payments from the hospitals it ranked, including licensing fees for permission to display a ‘Best Hospitals’ badge,” Chiu says. “My office is committed to defending consumers’ best interests, so I’m glad we were able to reach a settlement that ensures greater transparency in U.S. News’s financial disclosures.”

In addition to pushing the outlet to disclose its payment structure, Chiu urged the publication in his op-ed to restructure the way it forms its ranking methodology, citing “significant limitations” with the current system. Chiu writes that the data US News utilizes for its “Best Hospitals” rankings is primarily provided by Medicare, making the list mainly applicable to people 65 and older.

“If U.S. News included data from private insurers and Medicaid, as some other hospital ratings do, it would present a fuller and more representative picture of hospital quality,” Chiu writes. “U.S. News also underweights data from outpatient treatment, which is how hospital care is now frequently provided.”

Additionally, Chiu says the outlet relies on physician surveys for ranking medical specialties, which provides skewed information and could potentially motivate hospitals to incentivize higher-ranking specialties. “For example, in its rankings of children’s hospitals, U.S. News allocates at least 19 points for treatment of cystic fibrosis, a rare disease affecting mostly white newborns, and only 1 point for treatment of sickle cell disease, which affects far more babies and disproportionately affects Black or African American newborns,” Chiu writes.

Chiu urges US News to properly measure the quality of care that hospitals provide all of their patients, including those who are historically underserved. “Separate measures prepared by the U.S. News show that many of its very highest ranked hospitals underperform in offering care to their local communities,” he writes. “It is not enough to provide stellar care to a select group of patients and not others.”

He goes on to say that US News’s current ranking methodology helps already prestigious hospitals attract more funding while cash-strapped local hospitals continue to struggle. “These rankings obscure the fact that for many common conditions and procedures – such as a routine knee replacement – your local hospital is likely just as good as the purportedly top-ranked hospitals that may require expensive travel costs,” Chiu writes.

“Many local hospitals providing outstanding care, but not recognized by U.S. News, are facing immense budgetary pressure. If community hospitals go out of business, patient care will suffer,” he continues. “Rather than pitting hospitals nationwide against each other, a better approach would be to provide key quality metrics for each hospital and, if appropriate, flag areas of special expertise or surgical volume.”

Chiu concludes his op-ed by encouraging the public to “keep in mind that the best hospital for you is usually the one in your community.”

Update: Here’s US News Executive Chairman and CEO Eric Gertler’s response to Chui’s op-ed.

Image: David Chiu/Flickr

Move over, IKEA! Emeryville’s most visited new destination may become a just-announced $1 billion Sutter Health medical center, as the Berkeley area was soon to lose its last remaining full-service hospital.

There has been anxiety brewing in the East Bay’s Berkeley-Emeryville-Albany area, because that area is slated to lose its last full-service hospital when the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center was scheduled to close by the year 2030. That hospital's operator Sutter Health deemed that building seismically unsound, but Berkeley officials have been sounding the alarm saying the closure would render that area a “hospital desert.”

They are not sounding those alarms anymore. The Chronicle reports that Sutter Health has just announced a new $1 billion “Sutter Emeryville Campus” in Emeryville, the city that is immediately to the south of Berkeley. Sutter Health said in a Wednesday press release that the new facility would be a combined “acute care medical center, primary and specialty care clinics, destination advanced care centers, urgent care facilities and ambulatory surgery centers.”  

“Our Emeryville campus project represents one of the most significant investments we’re making across our system over the next decade and is part of our broader vision to meet the community’s growing demand for expanded access to our services across the East Bay footprint,” Sutter Health president and CEO Warner Thomas said in the same press release.

The main new medical center would go into the big vacant brown patch in the image above. Two other adjacent existing buildings at 5555 Hollis Street and 5300 Chiron Way would be repurposed into outpatient service facilities.

To put this into perspective for casual Emeryville visitors, the new facility will be less than a mile north of the famed Emeryville IKEA, or about a half-mile south of the Emeryville Public Market food court.

But Berkeley officials are still quite pleased with the location. “I am excited that Sutter Health is continuing its commitment to healthcare access for the East Bay region with this new medical center,” former Berkeley mayor and current East Bay state Senator Jesse Arreguín said in the press release. “Our community has long advocated for expanded healthcare services and this new facility in Emeryville is a testament to that collective effort. I look forward to continuing our partnership with Sutter Health to ensure that East Bay residents receive the high-quality emergency and primary care they need and deserve.”

Okay yes, this is the same Sutter Health whose 2020 price-gouging scandal landed then-Supervisor Hillary Ronen on a 60 Minutes segment. That scandal resulted in a $575 settlement ruling against the healthcare giant.

Of course, these medical facilities are years away from being completed, with patients first arriving in 2028, and full construction not expected to be completed until 2033.

Related: Sutter Health, Other Bay Area Healthcare Systems Purchase Special Freezers For Storing Pfizer's COVID Vaccine [SFist]

Images via Sutter Health

Nurses say that a group of patients at the UCSF Medical Center at Parnassus were subjected to torrid indoor temperatures of 98 degrees or more during this past week’s heatwave, as the hospital does not have air conditioning on certain floors.

KGO has an alarming story today reporting that there is apparently no air conditioning on some floors of the UCSF Medical Center at Parnassus, which became quite a health hazard for patients and nurses during the incredibly hot temperatures the city has endured the last week or so. To be specific, KGO notes that “on certain floors, there is no air conditioning” at the UCSF Parnassus hospital, and that they’ve confirmed this information with "more than a half a dozen” nurses.

"Right now, it is so miserably hot on our floor. It is 95-100 degrees and we are taking care of extremely-ill patients," a nurse named Melton Smith told KGO. "My anger level is up to here. I've been dealing with this for years and I don't know what else to do. I'm sick of it and we're all sick of it."

So this wasn't a breakdown — the lack of air conditioning on some floors is something the facility has reportedly been dealing with “for years.”

Most nurses who commented to KGO were unwilling to give their names. But one of them commented to the station, "Especially from a top hospital in the US, it's really ridiculous. I can't even put on my gloves to do the work that I need to do to take care of my patients because my palms are sweating from the heat.”

UCSF did not comment to KGO for this story, but the aforementioned nurse Smith did share an email he received from the UCSF CEO. "I'm really sorry about the situation," that email said, adding, "We've made substantial investments in cooling over the last decade and will continue to do so."

There was an implication in this story that some of these areas of the hospital were not supposed to be open to patients — the hospital is about to undergo a major expansion in the coming years — and perhaps this is an issue of overcrowding?

And it sounds like these “substantial investments” have not yet managed to air condition the entire facility. And the recent heat wave now appears to be over, as the ten-day forecast calls for very normal SF temperatures for this time of year.

So realistically, it’s highly unlikely that we’re going to see any more temperatures in the neighborhood of the 90s for the rest of 2024, and until next spring. But in the global warming era, the lack of air conditioning could still be an issue at UCSF Parnassus every summer and autumn going forward.

Related: This Past Week Was a Reminder of Why You Can't Trust Weather Apps for SF Heatwaves [SFist]

Image: UCSF Medical Center via Yelp

Hospitalizations from COVID-19 continue climbing across California, and in the Bay Area, the number of hospitalized patients with serious cases rose above 1,000 for the first time since mid-February.

The Delta surge likely hasn't peaked here yet, and as with previous surges, we know that the hospitalization numbers tend to lag behind rises in cases by several weeks. As of Tuesday, there were 1,040 confirmed and suspected COVID patients in Bay Area hospitals, up from 987 on Monday, according to state data. This marks the first time that hospitalizations have risen above the 1,000 mark since February 16, when the winter surge was waning and there were 1,008 people in Bay Area hospitals.

Due to high rates of vaccination, the number of people dying from COVID infections appears to be less, but the actual mortality rate we're seeing from the Delta variant in the region now isn't yet clear. Since July 2, 112 people have died from COVID in the Bay Area; statewide, 1,030 have died in that same span.

Out of the 1,040 hospitalized at present in the Bay Area, 240 are in ICU beds, or 23%. It's not clear how many of those in hospitals were fully vaccinated, though doctors have been noting anecdotally that the majority are unvaccinated, and those who are fully vaccinated tend to be elderly and have underlying conditions that lead to more serious cases.

The number of hospitalized has been steadily rising across California since early July, a couple of weeks after the June 15th date when bars, restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters all were able to reopen fully and drop mask mandates. SFist noted on July 2 that hospitalizations were already ticking up, and by late July it was clear that the Delta variant had changed the calculus around reopening — leading to the CDC issuing a nationwide recommendation on July 27 that masks stay on indoors even for the vaccinated.

Breakthrough infections remain possible among the vaccinated — and with vaccinated infecting vaccinated — moreso with the Delta variant, though the exact numbers remain obscure. As the New York Times reports today, the CDC isn't fully tracking breakthrough infections and their outcomes, so exact numbers will remain hard to come by — also, with the wide availability of at-home tests and the likelihood that these infections are mild, a large portion of them are likely going unrecorded.

"A modest percentage of people who are fully vaccinated will still get COVID-19 if they are exposed to the virus that causes it," said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in an email to the Times.

Anecdotally around San Francisco, that has translated to many people working in the service industry and/or traveling this summer falling ill — or testing positive and having one or more symptoms — in recent weeks. And this has led to a coalition of Bay Area health officers issuing a mandate for masks indoors as of August 2, with compliance being hit or miss and dependent on businesses to police the policy.

"I think that if we started to test people just randomly on the street, we would find a lot more people who test positive," says Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious diseases fellow at Stanford, speaking to the Times.

What has held true, even with the more infectious variant, is that the vaccines are working to prevent serious illness and death. And California's comparatively high rate of vaccination compared to Florida has been born out in the hospitalization numbers there versus here during this surge.

But with as much virus as seems to be circulating now across the Bay Area, it's anyone's guess when this surge will peak and began to wane, sending fewer people to the hospital. As the Chronicle reported last week, the best guess seems to be early to mid September.

San Francisco's seven-day rolling average of daily new cases ticked slightly down last week — hitting 263 on August 3, down from 272 a day earlier. But it is far from clear if the city has hit its peak.

Previously: Put Your Masks Back On Everywhere Indoors, Bay Area — Health Officers Seek To Tamp Down Delta Surge

Governor Newsom announced Wednesday that California hospitals will soon be allowed to perform “scheduled surgeries” as the state’s health care system remains intact amid influxes of COVID-19 patients. Coronavirus testing is also expected to grow significantly by the end of the month.

But don’t hold your breath: Newsom says there’s still no definite “opening date” for the Golden State in the books — yet.

As reported by KPIX, the California Governor’s press conference this afternoon was somewhat sobering; there’s absolutely a light at the end of this tunnel, we just can’t see it yet. Among the Governor’s mid-week updates — which included information on state-wide contact tracing measures and additional testing sites — Newsom stated “scheduled surgeries” will soon be permitted and that COVID-19 testing is improving by the day.

“We are in a position today to begin to pull back and lean in by beginning to schedule surgeries once again throughout not only our hospital system but our broader health care delivery system,” the governor added in Wednesday’s live-streamed event, remarking that these "essential” surgeries don't include those done solely for cosmetic reasons.

“These are surgeries that are not only scheduled but essential,” he continued. “Tumors, heart valves the need for people to get the kind of care that they desire. If it’s delayed, it ultimately becomes denied. If it’s delayed it can become acute.”

This bit of news also comes as a sigh of relief for certain medical and operating room employees furloughed over their services, essentially, being wiped out overnight.  

“We will be thoughtful and judicious on how we [restart of surgery units], we will not overload the system,” he answered. Newsom and his team are expected to start contacting health care systems throughout the state to inform them when they can again schedule certain operations.

Another celebrated update spun around California’s COVID-19 testing capacity and availability, both of which are slated to expand over the next few weeks… and months.

"Our goal is [to have COVID-19 testing] north of 60,000 a day," Newsom declared, per SFGate. Currently, some 16,000 COVID-19 tests are performed daily in the state, up significantly from the 2,000 done in early March. By the end of this month, Newsom expects at least 25,000 tests will be conducted each and every day as they move toward more lofty totals: "We want to have a minimum of 60,000 to 80,000 tests a day.”

For the state’s ideated contact-trace program, California will need to at least meet around half of those figures to see that agenda to fruition.

“We need increased capacity when cold and flu are more prevalent and we need to answer the question of whether someone has a cold, the flu or COVID," said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, noting that 35,000 daily tests need to be preformed every single day in order to support the plan; this would give healthcare facilities ample wiggle room to test for the new respiratory virus as other seasonal illnesses come to the forefront.

And given the recent news from CDC Director Robert R. Redfield that the United States might experience a “second wave” of coronavirus — one more severe than the crest we’re all currently riding — come fall, COVID-19 testing needs to grow at novel speeds.

Related: New Autopsies Show Community Transmission of the Coronavirus In Santa Clara County In January or Earlier

67 People Test Positive for COVID-19 At Senior Facility In Japantown

Newsom Lays It Down That Stay-At-Home Orders Not Getting Lifted Anytime Soon

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Two San Francisco hospitals are facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, after state healthcare regulators said they failed to properly treat patients who died in their care.

According to the California Department of Public Health, SF's Kaiser Permanente Medical Center owes $147,000 for two 2016 incidents, both if which ended in patient deaths.

Bay City News reports that in the first death cited by CA DPH, "hospital staff failed to properly use dialysis equipment and a tube used for extracting blood from a patient’s femoral artery came loose...the patient suffered 'massive blood loss and cardiac arrest' and died two days later."

In the second death, hospital staff failed "to properly use a tracheotomy tube," causing the patient's demise.

California Pacific Medical Center's St. Luke Campus was also hit with a fine of $47,452.50. In that case, the Chron reports, "a female patient fell in 2015 while under the care of hospital staff, hit her head, underwent brain surgery and died."

In a written statement, Kaiser spokesperson Barbara Crawford says “we sincerely regret that these incidents occurred and extend our sympathy to the families involved...While such cases are rare, we take full responsibility for the provision of safe, quality care to our patients.”

Crawford says that Kaiser has “implemented systemic improvements and training for our nurses, physicians, and staff,” changes she says "have been approved by state regulators."

Speaking to the St. Luke's fatality, a spokesperson tells the Chron that they immediately reported the death “to the appropriate regulatory agencies and initiated a quality improvement process to ensure it does not happen again.”

Two other Bay Area hospitals were also fined for significant errors, the DPH says. Redwood City's Sequoia Hospital faces a $47,452.50 fine for a February 2016 incident in which they mistakenly removed a woman's ovaries, when only her uterus, fallopian tubes and appendix were supposed to be excised. "The procedure was entered incorrectly in the hospital’s surgical schedule" the Chron reports, "and the woman will need estrogen replacement therapy for life."

Napa’s Queen of the Valley Medical Center "received three fines — more than any other hospital on the list — totaling $225,000 for cases involving three different patients who were the victims of substandard care in 2013," BCN reports. The alleged errors left two patients dead and a third in a persistent vegetative state.

The presence of another Ebola patient in the continental United States — this one, in Texas, being a man who contracted the disease in Liberia, got on a plane to Dallas without showing symptoms, and became symptomatic after he arrived — is sending evening news broadcasters into a tizzy. And the local angle here is that Bay Area hospitals are now "gearing up for the possibility of an Ebola patient walking through their doors," as ABC 7 reports.

The Regional Medical Center of San Jose, we're told, has its existing isolation units ready. And its screening procedures for patients arriving with a fever or any other such symptoms include asking the patient if they've traveled to West Africa recently. This turns out to be a question that was asked of our Patient Zero, Liberian-born Thomas Eric Duncan, at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital when he first took himself to their ER last week, only the fact that he'd been to West Africa was not communicated by one nurse to other staff members, and, stupidly, Duncan was sent home with some antibiotics.

As the Examiner reports, Duncan left Liberia to visit the U.S. on September 19th, flew through Brussels and Washington, D.C., and landed at Dallas-Fort Worth on Saturday September 20th. He did not fall ill until September 24th. Ebola has an incubation period of 21 days, and Dr. Tom Frieden of the CDC explains, "Even in the initial phases of illness, when [a patient's] got a fever, the most sensitive tests in the world don't detect [Ebola] because there's so little virus that they have. It's only as they become sicker that they become more infectious." As CNN notes, Duncan's temperature was normal when he left Liberia. So far, no one with whom he had contact in the U.S. has shown symptoms.

In positive news, three out of four American aid workers who were infected with the disease and flown back to the U.S. for treatment have recovered via the use of experimental drug ZMapp, the latest being Dr. Rick Sacra of Massachusetts. As the AP reports, a fourth is still being treated in Atlanta. Also a British man infected with Ebola who was also given the drug was released from the hospital earlier this month.

To be clear: No one in the Bay Area has tested positive for Ebola. Per the Examiner, "The CDC has received 94 inquiries from states about illnesses that initially were suspected to be Ebola... [And of] the 13 people who actually underwent testing, only one -- the Dallas patient -- tested positive."

Get scared everyone! Or don't.

The parents of an Oakland girl are seeking answers after their daughter, 13-year-old Jahi McMath, underwent routine tonsil surgery last week but later was pronounced brain dead. According to reports, "hospital staff have asked the family to leave the facility, and have refused the family's request to meet with hospital administration."

Oakland Tribune has more:

Jahi went in for surgery on Dec. 9 for what was supposed to be a one-night stay, according to her mother, Nailah Winkfield. When Jahi came out of surgery, she appeared healthy and alert, and was eating a Popsicle, her mother said. The girl was talking and reading notes before blood began pouring from her nose and mouth, she said. She later went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced brain-dead by Thursday, the family has said.

Jahi McMath's family is now asking for the hospital to conduct an investigation. According to KGO, the girl suffered bizarre side effects after the procedure, including "clots sliding out of her mouth."

KGO has more:

"My daughter had actual clots sliding out of her mouth and they gave me a cup and said, 'here catch them with the cup so we can measure them,'" [her mother Nailah Winkfield] said.

McMath's grandmother Sandra Chatman is a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland and said she was surprised by what she calls a lack of attention by Oakland Children's Hospital staff.

"I went in and I said 'is this normal, do you guys find this to be normal?' And they said 'I don't really know,' and I said 'well then get a doctor,'" Chatman said.

KGO repot below:

UPDATE 2:30: The crews, according to a nearby commenter, appear to have dispersed now. Not sure what the "mysterious white powder" was, but we'll update as soon as we know more.

2:10: Both St. Francis Memorial Hospital and the post office at 900 Hyde have now been shut down. The San Francisco post office was evacuated this morning at around 11:35 a.m. when employees found a "mysterious white powder on their clothing," prompting them to walk to the nearby hospital's emergency room.

KRON has more:

San Francisco Department of Public Health spokeswoman Eileen Shields said the five employees were evaluated at the hospital and released around 1 p.m. The hospital was not evacuated, hospital spokeswoman Dee Mostofi said. The Office of Emergency Services is asking the public to avoid the area around Pine and Larkin streets. The post office remained shut down as of 1:15 p.m.

12:48: We're getting word that the emergency room at St. Francis Memorial Hospital (1400 Pine) has shut down today due to a hazmat situation.

According to KRON 4, "Five people at the hospital...have similar symptoms caused by an unknown substance."

The San Francisco Department of Public Health is currently investigating the incident. Fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge tells BCN/SFAppeal that fire crews are “testing a substance on somebody's clothing” at the hospital.

We'll update as soon as we know more.

A 67-year-old man was grabbed by the neck and dragged out of a stall in a first-floor bathroom at St. Francisco Memorial Hospital in Nob Hill earlier this week. The 41-year-old suspect reportedly followed the man into the restroom, grabbed him and punched him in the head while demanding money.

According to the Examiner, Hospital security heard the screams and managed to stop him from taking off and detain him until police arrived. The suspect, Damon Walker was in violation of probation and charged with elder abuse, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. The "deadly weapon" here was Walker's brute strength. As SFPD spokesman Albie Esparza put it: "A lot of times someone doesn’t have to have an actual weapon to be charged with using one during an assault. In this case, the suspect was significantly younger and much taller, which is why we gave him that charge." They've been going hard on the deadly weapon charges lately. One more and it'll be a trend.

Thankfully, the victim was already in a hospital, so he was treated onsite for the fractures he suffered to his face.

[SFEx]

Nooooo. The California Pacific Medical Center's dastardly plan to build a new "$1.7 billion, 555-bed acute and women and children's care hospital" at the corner of Van Ness and Geary will result in the death of Koko Cocktails. (A bar we admire so much, we shared it with Bold Italic last year.) Granted, this isn't breaking news. The bar owners knew about the hospital expansion when they signed their lease three years ago. But still. We'll be sad to see it go.

On the brighter side, Eater's Carolyn Alburger has word that KoKo's new space will open just around the corner.

Owners Chris Keith, Lori Martens and Justin Mulford knew the end was coming when they signed their lease three years ago, but the CPMC is expediting the settlement to get Koko to move out, possibly as soon as August. Koko hired a lawyer to help them get more out of the deal; and CPMC has agreed to pay for part of the build-out at their new space. This brings us to Hi Lo Club, a new bar coming together for a hopeful opening later this year at 1423 Polk Street, where Java Chez Moi currently sits.

In the meantime, be sure to visit what we consider one of the finest bars in all the Bay Area. KoKo Cocktails,1060 Geary, 5pm-2am, 415-885-4788.

UPDATE: According to one of KoKo Cocktail's owners, the bar is not scheduled to close in August. In fact, there's no estimated date of when they'll close ther Geary location. (Hopefully, never!)

A daily review of local food-related musings.

Taco Bell is the stuff hangover-remedy days are made of. Also, it's tasty. Now we have another reason to adore the fast food chain. Starting this week, SFGate reports, Taco Bell "will offer their new Cantina Tacos, with chicken, carnitas and carne asada options, all topped with onion and cilantro at prices that rival your neighborhood lonchera." That is to say, Taco Bell will start selling street food. Mmm, sodium. Another bonus, you won't have to buy the tacos from the back of a truck. A red-letter day, folks.

Reese's Peanut Butter cup fan Thomas Keller serves Japanese bluefin tuna, which is endangered, at The French Laundry. Yum! Also: grrrr. But mostly, yum! UPDATE: Keller actually serves Kindai Blue Fin Tuna, which is sustainable. (Or is it?) So everybody wins! Except the fish, that is.

Will hospital food be the latest gastronomic trend to spread like cancer on Twitter and Facebook? According to All of Them Witches (via Mission Mission), the hottest cheap eat this season is the berry parfait at St. Luke’s Hospital Cafeteria for a scant $1.53.

Although Alice Waters won't reveal her favorite junk food to SFist (for what it's worth, we peg her as a Freedent kinda gal), Mary Ladd at Bay Area Bites gets the grand wizard to open up about her favorite place, Boulette's Larder. "My Saturday morning trip to the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market is one of my most beloved rituals--I stop by Boulette's to get my English muffins and eggs for breakfast. For a weekday lunch I order a simple, perfect salad or pulled pork sandwich," says Waters.

Gordon Ramsey acted like a pig on Jay Leno, according to Eater. You, sir, belong no where near Sofia Vergara or anyone associated with Modern Family.

A clinical trial is taking place in San Francisco for HIV+ people who are exhibiting flu symptoms in which they can qualify for free in-home doctor visits. Quest Clinical Studies, Conant Medical Group and Adamas Pharmaceuticals are testing a triple combination antiviral drug (TCAD) therapy for influenza. If you or someone you know has HIV and is exhibiting 100-degree or higher fever in addition to fatigue and other symptoms, you should call 1-888-5-HIV-FLU to see if you qualify. In addition to receiving home treatment, study subjects will have all their treatment, including prescriptions and lab costs, covered, and will be compensated for time and travel.

The H1N1 flu is looking particularly dangerous for HIV+ people, and a community forum on the subject is scheduled for November 10th at the LGBT Community Center (1800 Market Street). Call them at (415) 865-5665 for more info.