The San Francisco Department of Public Health is rethinking its two-decades-long relationship with the Sheriff’s Department guarding its medical facilities, leading to a drop in the number of deputies at city-run sites by three within the past month.
The change comes as movements for Black Lives Matter and defunding the police grow in the city. At San Francisco General Hospital, where 29 sworn deputies are assigned, an internal debate has been brewing between some staff who protest deputies’ treatment of people of color and want them out of the hospital and other nurses who say they depend on deputies for their safety. Within the past two weeks, health department Director Dr. Grant Colfax and San Francisco General CEO Dr. Susan Ehrlich sent letters to employees saying they were reconsidering their existing security model.