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Patient Access, Hospital Accountability Measures Move in Calif. Legislature

California patients would have greater access to doctors and hospitals of their choice and the state’s non-profit hospitals would be held more accountable in documenting their charity care and community benefits under two bills strongly backed by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU).

AFL-CIO Blog
June 27, 2014

Santa Clara County still interested in DCHS hospitals

The county still wants to buy Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, but the Daughters of Charity—owner of six medical care facilities throughout the state—is courting prospective buyers interested in acquiring the entire nonprofit health system, according to Board of Supervisors President Mike Wasserman.

Morgan Hill Times
June 26, 2014

Nurses hold Modesto rally for union membership

More than 125 nurses held a pro-union rally outside Memorial Medical Center in Modesto on Tuesday. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United said about 900 registered nurses at Memorial are eligible to vote on union membership in an election set for Thursday and Friday. Employees with other unionized hospitals, including Kaiser Modesto Medical Center, participated in the rally outside the hospital at Coffee Road and Briggsmore Avenue.

The Modesto Bee
June 25, 2014

RNs: Yes vote for CNA means support for providing quality patient care

Two RNs explain why they strongly support voting yes for CNA. An emergency room RN at MMC shares, "I became a nurse to provide quality care to those in need. I love my patients and care for them as if they are my family members. I’m voting yes because my ultimate goal is to do just that.” A long-term MMC ICU RN shares, "My current experience is that CNA doesn’t force me to do anything; they force the employer to obey the law and protect patients."

Modesto Bee
June 25, 2014

Nurses in Gilroy host vigil as St. Louise's goes up for sale

Nurses from St. Louise Hospital in Gilroy held a vigil Thursday in light of the news that the hospital's current owner is selling the non-profit hospital. They say the hospital's current owner --- a Catholic organization called Daughters of Charity -- is a nonprofit organization and the nurses fear that whatever for-profit company purchases St. Louise won't share the same vision. Currently, St. Louise serves a largely uninsured and low-income population.

Cassandra Arsenault, KION 5
June 23, 2014

AB 503 is good for communities

Re "California nurses association plays hardball" (Viewpoints, June 17): Bruce Maiman seems to have let his dislike of the California Nurses Association cloud his understanding of an important bill with broad support, AB 503. Multibillion dollar hospital chains get huge tax breaks by incorporating as not-for-profits, operating to benefit the community. Last year, The Greenlining Institute conducted a study and found that sketchy reporting requirements leave us largely in the dark about the community benefit activities that are supposed to earn that tax break.

Carla Saporta in the Sacramento Bee
June 20, 2014

PRO: A nurses union for Memorial RNs benefits everyone

We moved to Modesto about 20 years ago to raise our families and soon after began our nursing careers at Memorial, working on the floor then with critically ill patients in the intensive care unit. For most of that time Memorial has been a great place to work. For a large regional medical center, we still felt like a community hospital with neighbors caring for neighbors. Our hospital changed dramatically when we were bought by the large health care chain, Sutter Health. Over the last few years, we have been asked to do more with less.

By Sharon Waite and Melanie Thompson in the Modesto Bee
June 20, 2014

Another View: Hospitals should give back in return for tax breaks

Assembly Bill 503 pending before the Legislature would amend California nonprofit hospitals’ reporting rules, required due to their exemption from corporate income taxes.The California Nurses Association is a proud co-sponsor of that bill and was surprised by Bruce Maiman’s criticism of our role promoting it, (“ State nurses group plays hardball,” Viewpoints, June 17). The accusation that the nurses association distorted the dialogue could not be further from the truth and is more appropriate for Maiman’s former work as a radio talk show host than the more measured, well-informed opinions readers expect to see on the Op-Ed pages of The Sacramento Bee.

By Deborah Burger, RN, Malinda Markowitz, RN, and Zenei Cortez, RN in the Sacramento Bee
June 20, 2014

Contra Costa County: Sups. approve $6 million bridge financing for Doctors Medical Center San Pablo

Contra Costa County will direct $6 million to keep cash-strapped Doctors Medical Center afloat for the next few months and give officials time to ponder what to do next. The $6 million property tax transfer approved by the board of supervisors Tuesday represents a third of the San Pablo-based hospital's annual $18 million deficit. The money will allow it to continue to operate while officials scramble to come up with a permanent rescue formula for a downsized facility.

Tom Lochner, Contra Costa Times
June 17, 2014

Sweet Charity: The Truth Behind Hospitals’ Community Benefits Windfall

Every year Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center releases a glossy brochure called Report to the Community. Among the doctor profiles and research-breakthrough stories are several dry metrics dealing with the number of beds, total patient and outpatient days and, perhaps most impressively, the year’s dollar value for something called “community benefit contributions.” Cedars, which is the state’s third highest-earning nonprofit hospital, claimed $640.3 million as its 2012 community benefit contribution.

By Bill Raden and Gary Cohn for Capital & Main
June 16, 2014