St. Rose Hospital Workers Stage a 'Die-In' in Hayward to Push Prop 40 as Federal Cuts Squeeze Alameda Health System

Health care workers lay down on the lawn outside St. Rose Hospital in Hayward on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 8, next to paper tombstones, in a "die-in" meant to show what they expect federal health care cuts to do to Bay Area patients. Their ask was for voters to pass Proposition 40 on the November ballot.

The rally drew members of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, the group Eden Area Indivisible and Assemblymember Liz Ortega, a San Leandro Democrat, the Mercury News reported.

Why St. Rose

St. Rose nearly closed in 2024. Ortega and then-state Sen. Aisha Wahab pushed for Alameda Health System to take over the hospital, which kept Hayward's only emergency room open. Ortega's office says the hospital faced imminent closure before that state-backed transfer. In April, Stanford agreed to partner with the health system to expand care at St. Rose, including plans for an inpatient psychiatric unit. But the hospital's maternity department closed in 2025.

Workers now point to H.R. 1, the federal spending law President Trump calls the "One Big Beautiful Bill." The Mercury News reported that it is expected to take tens of billions of dollars a year out of California's health care system, and that it has left Alameda Health System with a $100 million funding gap.

"It is our children who will not have access to care. It is our mothers who are dying, dying, giving birth," Ortega told the crowd, from a stage in front of the hospital.

Voices from the floor

Nastasha Evans, who leads patient registration at Alameda Hospital, said she had worked 14 days straight because of staffing shortages. Before the cuts, she told the paper, her hospital saw a couple dozen uninsured patients a week or fewer. Now that people are losing Medi-Cal coverage, she said it sees as many as 18 a day. Justin Kmetz, a radiology technologist who has worked at St. Rose for 24 years, said he worries the hospital where his children were born could close.

What Prop 40 would do

Prop 40 would put a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth more than $1 billion and send most of the money to public health care programs. Opponents, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have raised far more money than supporters, and two rival measures on the same ballot, Props 41 and 42, are written to cancel Prop 40 if they get more votes. Ortega urged a no vote on both.

Election Day is Nov. 3.