Daughters of Charity RNs to AG Harris, Don't Derail Sale with Poison Pills for Our Patients

Dozens of Daughters of Charity registered nurses, joined by other hospital workers, will rally outside the offices of Attorney General Kamala Harris calling on her to approve the sale of six endangered California Daughters of Charity Health System (DCHS) hospitals to Prime Healthcare without conditions that would likely scuttle the sale and force the hospitals to close. 

What: Rally by Daughters of Charity RNs, ‘Save Our Hospitals, No Poison Pills’
When: Tuesday, February 17, 11:30 a.m.
Where: 1300 I St., Sacramento

“For nurses, what matters is not negotiations between the Attorney General and Prime, and the reasonable process of state scrutiny, but the very real threat that we could end up with the closure of these vital hospitals. That would be an enormous tragedy, especially for the medically underserved residents who depend on these hospitals for emergency services and other hospital care and may have nowhere else to go,” said Zenei Cortez, RN, Co-President of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United which represents 1,800 Daughters RNs.

CNA has joined with a broad coalition that includes environmental, community and civil rights groups that endorse the sale to avert a potentially catastrophic health care crisis in two of California’s largest metropolitan areas. DCHS hospitals are operated as non-profits, the sale of which requires the approval of the Attorney General, who must determine if the transaction is in the public interest. 

Seton RN: When hospitals die, people die too.

“If this hospital closes, there will be a health care crisis for southern San Francisco and the Peninsula,” said Debra Amor, RN at Seton Medical Center in Daily City.  Seton, Amor noted, is a stroke certified hospital and performs open heart surgeries. “Every day we save lives in our community. We have an entire floor of ventilator patients who have lived at Seton for many years because there is nobody to take care of these patients.”  

Seton Coastside has a skilled nursing facility and an ER, “the only ER available to the Coastal residents within a 40 minute drive. If someone needs immediate care, where will they go? The skilled nursing facility at Seton Coastside is full of underserved patients that can’t take care of themselves.  We don’t have enough of these beds in the county.  Where will they go?  Without these hospitals there will be a huge health care crisis. When hospitals die, people die too. We are asking the attorney general to approve the sale and to keep our hospitals open,” Amor said.

St. Vincent RN: Approve the sale, our hospitals, our families health depends on it. 

“I work here but my family also lives here.  All of us are employees, but we are also patients, as are our families,” said Jackye Gammage-Rogers, RN, at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles.  

“If the Attorney General imposes conditions that kill this sale, we will not only lose thousands of good jobs in working class neighborhoods, we lose the hospitals that care for families like mine.  We urge Attorney General Harris to avoid this tragic outcome, and approve the sale in a way that allows us to survive. Our hospitals, our jobs, our pensions and our families’ healthcare depend on it," said Gammage-Rogers.

St. Louise RN: Closure would be devastating for patient care and local economies.

“St. Louise hospital is crucial to the communities of Gilroy, Morgan Hill and San Martin. Any bankruptcy of the DCHS system or closure of any hospital would be devastating for patient care and the local economies,” said Donna Fischer, RN at a St. Louise Regional Hospital.

“We are talking about maintaining patient services and wages that support a local economy. There is no realistic alternative to Prime Health,” stated Fischer, “the Attorney General must put patients and communities first, any other decision would be reckless.”        

O’Connor RN: Listen to the affected employees and communities, there is no alternative.

“Several weeks ago the Attorney General’s office held six public meetings around California to listen to public opinion from the  impacted communities. Overwhelmingly at every gathering, the public, doctors, nurses, patients and the vast majority of DCHS employees  spoke in favor of the sale,” said Maribel Licardo, O’Conner, RN at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose. 

“There is no other viable alternative. Closure or bankruptcy is not an option; put patients and communities first – all other considerations are secondary to peoples health,” Licardo said.  

Hundreds of RNs rallied and spoke out at public hearings last month in Los Angeles and the Bay Area in support of the sale. Many other Daughters hospital workers are also supporting the sale, which, additionally, has been endorsed editorially by the Los Angeles Times and the Gilroy Dispatch, two of the cities with DCHS hospitals.

When DCHS RNs first learned of the effort to sale in 2014, nurses came up with a set of guidelines designed to protect the hospitals, patients, and the community. These include: (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. Of interested buyers, only Prime satisfied these principles.