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Nurses put forth demands as local hospitals change hands

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A new team may soon operate both the St. Francis and St. Vincent medical centers in Lynwood and downtown Los Angeles, respectively. A change in ownership depends on whether California Attorney Gen. Kamala Harris gives the go ahead in the next few months—and if the new owners abide by a list of demands submitted by the California Nurses Association (CNA) to prospective purchaser Blue Mountain Capital Management. The Daughters of Charity Health Systems (DCHS) own the two hospitals and four more in other parts of the state.

The CNA wants Blue Mountain to maintain operations at each facility, retain current patient services, and honor collective bargaining and working standards for employees. The nurses association will meet soon with representatives of Blue Mountain to address core principles adopted by the nurses after the DCHS indicated plans to sell its facilities. About 1,800 CNA members work at the medical centers.

“Our nurses want each hospital to remain open as a valuable community resource,” said Desi Murray, director of CNA’s Catholic division. “The Daughters of Charity have been an excellent employer and we don’t want to see our level of service decline with a new owner. Some of these facilities are in low-income communities, and it is vital that we maintain our good working relationship, not only with our patients, but with the communities as well.”

Among the principals that the CNA expects Blue Mountain to adhere to are: continued operation of the hospitals, maintaining existing patient services and not taking actions that may place those services at risk, preserving existing jobs as well as collective bargaining agreements and current labor standards, and upholding all pension promises made to current and future employees. Representatives from both the CNA and the Daughters of Charity have said they will closely monitor the transition process that could wrap up by year’s end.

“We encourage the attorney general to conduct a rigorous review to assure preservation of hospital and patient care services for the largely underserved communities that have long depended on Daughters of Charity hospitals for the critical care they need,” said Malinda Markowitz, a registered nurse and co-president of the CNA.

Representatives of the CNA said that Blue Mountain has not discussed any impending layoffs, nor has the management group rejected any portion of the pension plan. Still, representatives of the nurses association—who went through this process before when Ascension Health purchased St. Francis and St. Vincent in 2012—want nothing less from the attorney general than full instructions to Blue Mountain that no hospital will be shuttered.

“We urge the attorney general to require the buyer to keep all of our hospitals open in order to preserve the essential services we currently provide to our community,” said Jackye Gammage-Rogers, a St. Vincent nurse. Markowitz echoed these comments, noting that the county’s healthcare services are not what they should be and that residents need more, not fewer, fully staffed medical facilities.

“The painful uncertainty that Daughters of Charity patients, communities, and employees have been forced to confront for months is a reminder that we still have a broken health care system that continues to need fundamental reform,” Markowitz said. “Nurses will never stop working to build a truly humane system with guaranteed healthcare for everyone, as in an expanded Medicare for all.”

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