WORCESTER, Mass., July 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As the nurses
prepare to head back to negotiations on Monday to resume a good
faith effort to reach an agreement to end their strike for safer
patient care (now on its 145th day), they were dismayed
to see the hospital's threat to scale back services and once again,
compromise care for the residents of Greater Worcester when there are 700 nurses
outside the hospital ready and willing to get back into the
building to provide the care and services their patients expect and
deserve.
"We are disappointed that Tenet continues to put a concern for
profits over a concern for the care and dignity of the patients we
care for at St. Vincent Hospital," said Marlena Pellegrino, RN, longtime nurse at the
hospital and co-chair of the local bargaining unit with the
Massachusetts Nurses Association. "This is just another ploy by
Tenet to threaten the safety of the public and to intimidate our
nurses, at a time when we have been working in good faith to
resolve this dispute for the good of all in our community."
As the strike is in its 21st week, last week Tenet reported
profits of more than $120 million for
the second quarter of 2021, after posting a profit of $97 million during the first quarter for a total
profit for the year of more than $217
million. Since the strike began, Tenet has spent more than
$95 million to prolong the nurses
strike at St. Vincent Hospital, a fraction of which would have
funded the staffing improvements the nurses are seeking.
The announcement by Tenet comes just a few days after the
parties met for two days in what were productive talks that the
nurses continue to hope will lead to a settlement to end the
strike.
"This is no time for posturing and service reductions, this is
the time for a good faith negotiation to resolve this dispute,"
Pellegrino added.
The problems with staffing that Tenet claims have precipitated
their decision to scale back services are the direct result of
their failure to heed the nurses concerns that led to the strike
and Tenet's efforts to prolong it. Back in May the hospital
walked away from the table claiming they would permanently replace
the nurses, a threat and a tactic that has obviously failed
miserably. After trying to staff the hospital with strike
replacement nurses from across the country, the care inside the
building has deteriorated, with reports of deplorable care being
delivered by these nurses, and chaos within the facility. In
recent weeks, the nurses have received reports of a growing number
of resignations of technicians, patient care assistants and other
staff who no longer want to work under the conditions created by
Tenet. All the while, there are 700 nurses with more than
1,000 years of experience and service to the hospital ready and
willing to re-enter the hospital to restore a reputation badly
tarnished by Tenet.
As to Tenet's touting of Tenet's ranking by U.S. News, the
nurses point to the only data on the quality of nursing care in the
hospital that matters: 700 nurses who have been on strike for 145
days, and a picket sign they wear that reads "If nurses are out
here, there is something wrong in there."
Call for a Federal Investigation
While the nurses in Worcester
call Tenet's focus on profits over patients into question, a number
of federal policy makers are also calling out the corporation for
its conduct, including its misuse of more than $2.6 billion in taxpayer-supported pandemic
funding from the CARES Act stimulus package. This was funding
that was supposed to be used by hospitals to provide PPE, staffing
and other resources to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet in
Tenet's hands was used to fund corporate expansion, pay down debt,
buy back stock for executives and, in the words of CEO Rittenmyer
as reported in the Dallas Morning News in April of 2020, "to
maximize our cash position."
On June 30, United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA), along with
Representatives James P. McGovern
(MA-02) and Lori Trahan (MA-03),
sent a letter to Tenet Health Chief Executive Officer
Ronald A. Rittenmeyer questioning
the company's use of taxpayer funds, including federal CARES Act
grants and loans, to enrich its executives and shareholders rather
than meet the needs of its health care workers and patients during
the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced in part by an ongoing nurses'
strike in Massachusetts and other
Tenet facilities across the nation. This call for accountability by
Tenet is in addition to efforts by other public officials,
specifically, Congresswoman Katie
Porter (D-CA) and Rosa
Delauro (D-CT), who sent a letter to U.S. Health and
Human Services Director Xavier
Becerra and Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Rebecca Slaughter, seeking a federal
investigation into whether Tenet and other major hospital operators
have misused their stimulus grants and other COVID relief
funds.
For a more detailed review of the staffing crisis, efforts by
nurses to convince Tenet to address the crisis, as well as
proposals nurses are seeking to improve patient care, click here to
view a previous press release on the matter.
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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the
largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members
advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of
nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of
nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view
of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies
on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
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SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association