Press Release
Attorney General Hearings on Fate of Four Bay Area Daughters of Charity Hospitals Start Wednesday
January 7-9—San Jose, Daly City, Gilroy, Moss Beach
Nurses to rally and testify for approval of sale to save critically needed, essential care at hospitals
Registered nurses from Daughters of Charity hospitals throughout the greater Bay Area are continuing their fight to save their hospitals and preserve essential patient care services in their communities, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) announced today. CNA/NNU represents 1,800 nurses at four of the affected hospitals state-wide. The RNs will hold rallies prior to each hearing and then testify to share findings from an impact report released mid-December, by CNA/NNU outlining the crucial healthcare services that would be lost in the event of hospital closures.
The Attorney General’s office is holding six public hearings in each of the communities served by one of the Daughters of Charity Hospitals—the first are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday for St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood and St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Los Angeles. Four Bay Area hearings are set to begin Wednesday for O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, followed by St. Louise in Gilroy on Thursday, and two on Friday at Seton Coastside in moss Beach and Seton Medical Center in Daly City.
"Prime Healthcare signed an agreement that guarantees that these hospitals will continue to provide vital health services to the communities surrounding them, while no other buyer has stepped forward and offered any commitments whatsoever," said Maribel Licardo, RN, O'Connor Hospital in San Jose.
Daughters of Charity Hospitals are operated as non-profit entities, and the proposed sale to Prime requires the approval of the Attorney General, who has the legal responsibility to ensure that the approval or non-approval of any sale of a non-profit hospital is in the public interest.
In early 2014, when confronted by the likelihood of sale, DCHS nurses formulated a set of principles that they determined a transaction must embody in order to protect the hospitals, patients, and the community. These included: (1) operate all DCHS hospitals as acute care facilities, (2) maintain all existing hospital services, (3) give reasonable assurances against a short-term bankruptcy, (4) keep all promises made to retirees, and (5) honor caregivers’ right to collectively bargain for their mutual aid and patient protection.
RNs made these principles known to all prospective purchasers who would agree to listen. Of those various candidates that lodged bids for the hospitals, only Prime satisfied the conditions necessary to guarantee safe patient care and continued community access to these essential institutions of public health. The RN support for this transaction is based on these commitments, the evidence of which is found in Prime’s written agreements.
The California chapter of the National Organization for Women joined the nurses calling for the approval of the sale to Prime in a letter to the Attorney General stating that “expanding women’s reproductive healthcare access is in the public interest.” Not only will (the sale) enable these hospitals to continue to provide needed comprehensive healthcare services to the communities they currently serve; the conditionally approved sale to Prime Healthcare will also expand much needed reproductive healthcare services to the same community.”
Nurses also considered a proposal from a Wall Street private equity firm, Blue Wolf Capital, and concluded that it failed to satisfy the conditions necessary to protect patients and communities. Notably, the company was not interested in the long term survival of a hospital system, but in the restructuring and re-sale of the system including substantial changes to vital healthcare services.
Hearing and Rally Schedule
- Wednesday Jan. 7— O’Connor Hospital—Rally at 9:00 a.m., Hearing at 10:00 a.m.
O’Connor Hospital Medical Office Building, 2101 Forest Ave., San Jose, CA 95128
“How can we close O’Connor Hospital, where one quarter on the babies in the San Jose area were born, there were almost 5,000 emergency room visits in the last year, is a stroke center and accepts many of the community’s most acutely ill patients?", said Maria Canonizado, an O'Connor Hospital RN.
- Thursday, Jan. 8, —St. Louise Regional Hospital—Rally at 9:00 a.m., Hearing at 10:00 a.m.
Gilroy City Hall, Council Chambers 7351 Rosanna St., Gilroy, CA 95020
“St Louise is the only acute care hospital serving the growing underserved Gilroy community and closing it will create a major public health crisis", said St. Louise RN Donna Fischer. "It’s the only ER for 25 miles, and served 24,000 patients last year, 45 percent who are financial vulnerable.”
- Friday, Jan. 9, Seton Medical Center Coastside— NO RALLY-Hearing—9:00 a.m.
Seton Medical Center-Coastside, 600 Marine Blvd., Moss Beach, CA 94038
In 2013 Seton Coastside treated 3,381 emergency department patients.
- Friday, Jan 9, Seton Medical Center—Rally at Noon, Hearing at 1:00 p.m.
Seton Medical Center, Merced Room, 145 Lake Merced Blvd., Daly City, CA 94015.
According to the CNA report entitled Closure of Daughters of Charity Hospitals Would Have Huge Impact on Access to Care: "Seton Medical Center's emergency department was put on diversion for 1,200 hours in 2013. Twenty-nine percent of visits to Seton’s ER were classified as either “severe without threat” or “severe with threat” the two highest patient acuity classifications for emergency room visits.
"Our hospital provides vital services to an underserved community who will be severely effected by a closure,” said Debra Amour, an RN who works at Seton Medical Center. “We provided a quarter of intensive care services in the area and of the patients who relied on lifesaving care, a significant majority identified as Asian or Latino and one-third were enrolled in Medi-Cal, the highest proportion for any hospital in the market."
Read statements by NOW California and the NAACP, who also support the sale of Daughters of Charity hospitals to Prime Healthcare.