Union voices concerns about proposed Southcoast Health, Care New England merger

In a lengthy and detailed letter to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Massachusetts Division, representing Southcoast Health workers, identified several key concerns about the proposed merger between Care New England and Southcoast Health.
In a lengthy and detailed letter to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Massachusetts Division, representing Southcoast Health workers, identified several key concerns about the proposed merger between Care New England and Southcoast Health.

BOSTON – In a lengthy and detailed letter to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, Massachusetts Division, representing Southcoast Health workers, identified several key concerns about the proposed merger between Care New England and Southcoast Health. While the union hopes that Healey will closely monitor the merger process as it unfolds, it has expressed union concerns to the mayors of New Bedford and Fall River, and has asked them to hold community forums throughout the region, Nikko Mendoza, communications director for 1199SEUI, told Providence Business News.

Calling this potential merger “unprecedented in the Massachusetts hospital market,” Tyrek D. Lee Sr., 1199SEIU executive vice president, wrote in the June 13 letter: “We look forward to working with your office to ensure that the proposed merger does not raise costs, decrease quality of care or negatively impact workers or the communities served by the hospitals.”

“This merger potentially could enhance quality health care across the south coast region of Massachusetts. However, without specific details, we do not know what the impact on consumers and health care workers will be,” said Mendoza. “Our ideal short-term outcome is increased transparency, now and throughout the merger process, from both Southcoast and [CNE], which could be enhanced by holding community forums throughout the region.” Taking a longer view, she added that the union’s ideal outcomes are protecting health care jobs and preserving health care quality and cost for the region’s consumers.

Impact on workers
Alarmed about the proposed merger’s impact on workers and the potential for layoffs, the union noted that unemployment rates in New Bedford (the site of Southcoast Health’s St. Luke’s Hospital) and in Fall River (home to Southcoast Health’s Charlton Memorial Hospital) are 6.7 percent and 7 percent, respectively; in contrast, Massachusetts’ overall unemployment rate is only 3.9 percent. Fall River and New Bedford are among the 11 Massachusetts’ cities with the highest unemployment rates, 1199SEUI noted.

- Advertisement -

Neither hospital system has been immune to job reductions. Most recently, CNE announced in late March that it was cutting 58 positions – primarily, though not exclusively, at Memorial Hospital, which CNE reported were unrelated to the pending closure of Memorial’s birthing center. Within a day or two thereafter, Southcoast announced its own layoffs – of 95 employees.

“After a merger, it is not uncommon for businesses to attempt to save costs on staffing,” wrote Lee in his letter to Healey. “This can mean that vacant positions go unfilled, jobs are outsourced and workers are laid off.” Should layoffs ensue, the union wants Massachusetts’ workers to have the same collective bargaining rights focusing on workforce retention that Rhode Island’s hospital conversion regulations afford health care workers.

What does the union want? It urged Healey to require the merged entity retain and keep the merged system and the member hospitals open for five years; commit to maintain current staffing and hospital services for at least five years; retain all existing employees, collective bargaining agreements and fringe benefits for a minimum of three years; and continue to contribute to existing pension fund programs and/or reinstate employer retirement plan contributions for the next decade.

Local control of new entity
While the two hospitals have indicated in press reports that each hospital will appoint 10 members to the 20-member board governing the new entity, Massachusetts’ Determination of Need regulations require that a majority of the individuals on the board live in the hospital’s primary service or health systems area. As such, the union, representing more than 52,000 health care workers throughout Massachusetts and more than 400,000 workers across the East Coast, said that the proposed plan offering equal representation would not succeed and the regulations may reduce representation from and accountability to Massachusetts.

Transparency and medical costs
Calling this “a perfect opportunity to make this transaction, if approved, a national model,” Lee recommended that the proposed merger process be as transparent and open as possible, by including community and worker input and sharing it with all affected parties. “Given the concerns about increased costs and competitive advantages that the new entity, if approved, will have, this entity can be pushed to be the most transparent hospital when it comes to disclosing the pricing,” Lee wrote.

Quality and delivery of care
Medicare’s Hospital Compare data reveal that only half of Kent Hospital’s patients with blood clots who were discharged with blood thinner medication received written instructions about the medicine, Lee wrote, citing the corresponding national and Rhode Island statewide averages as 91 percent and 71 percent, respectively. Patients’ wait times at Memorial Hospital’s emergency department before being given medicine were 20 minutes longer than Rhode Island and national averages, Lee wrote, while Southcoast’s wait times were similar to state and national averages.

“We are very concerned about these indications of a lower standard of care and want to ensure these and other practices that demonstrate poor quality of care do not become the norm in a merged system, negatively impacting the quality of care seen in Massachusetts,” wrote Lee.

Mendoza said that the union is regularly communicating and sharing information with local District 1199 New England, which represents CNE health care workers.

No posts to display