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Today, Healthcare Workers Spoke-Out About Patient Care at HCA-Owned Hospitals

Posted on: Friday, 26 May 2006, 21:00 CDT

LOS ANGELES, May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- At a press conference today, healthcare workers spoke out about the impact of understaffing on patient care at several California hospitals owned by HCA. The healthcare workers were originally scheduled to speak in front of yesterday's annual HCA shareholder meeting at their corporate headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. The night before, however, HCA sought and won a gag order preventing California nurses and other healthcare workers from speaking outside of California. The gag order was the latest in a string of efforts by HCA to prevent healthcare workers from speaking publicly about their demands to be given a voice in safe staffing and patient care issues.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060526/SFFV003-a http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060526/SFFV003-b )

The order sought by HCA preventing caregivers to speak in Nashville, did, however, reaffirm the union members' right to speak out in California, as they did at today's press conference.

"HCA tries to shut us up when we talk about the dangerous situations on the hospital floor. This month, they have demonstrated that they will do anything to stop this information from getting out," said Russel Main, a Respiratory Therapist at Riverside Medial Center. "I work with people who are having difficulty breathing. I can't help them because we are so short staffed, so I have to choose which patient is getting the least amount of air. I have to tell patients who can't breathe that I will get to them as soon as I can. This is information that the public needs to know."

Nearly 2000 healthcare workers, including Certified Nursing Assistants, Registered Nurses, Surgical and Operating Room Technicians, Dietary Aides, and other hospital classifications, are represented by SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West and SEIU Local 121 RN at HCA-owned Regional Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Los Robles Medical Center, West Hills Medical Center, and Riverside Community Hospital in California. The hospital workers are fighting for an industry standard contract that features an education and training fund, affordable health insurance for employees and their families, greater job security, and safe staffing guidelines.

Studies that analyze the quality of hospital care have reported poor patient outcomes for certain procedures at California hospitals owned by HCA and low levels of patient satisfaction. Healthcare workers these poor patient outcomes to low staffing levels set by corporate policy, not local healthcare providers.

Healthcare workers represented by SEIU UHW and SEIU 121 RN issued the following statement to HCA shareholders: "We [HCA healthcare workers] are going to the shareholder meeting to express concerns about HCA's policies related to safe staffing levels. The concerns have ethical implications. They also have shareholder implications. The two most striking differences we see from many of the other California hospitals that compete with HCA are: a) HCA's staffing levels are substandard, but moreover b) It is virtually impossible to affect staffing decisions, because in HCA's case, they appear to be set thousands of miles away by corporate policy."

HCA-owned California hospitals have faced federal government investigations and Department of Health Services citations for short staffing. In 2003, federal inspectors faulted the HCA-owned Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, California for running unlicensed medical units, using potentially un-sterilized surgical equipment, and failing to monitor an organ-transplant program with high rates of patient complications. HCA-owned Regional Medical Center in San Jose is one of only 21 California hospitals found in violation of the nurse to patient ratio law by the California Department of Health Services (DHS).

In their statement to HCA shareholders, SEIU healthcare workers wrote: "We can tell you anecdotally how these short staffing policies impact our patients and may cost lives. We have also brought with us, and have already presented to the media, a compilation of data and indicators showing poor patient medical outcomes and dissatisfaction throughout the California HCA facilities. The data show unacceptable rates of complications and death for a number of procedures.

It could not be clearer to us that these negative outcomes are linked to a policy of attempting to increase operating margin by staffing below the level that is safe for our patients.

Again, this not only raises ethical questions. It is also a dangerous business strategy for these 3 reasons:

* Most payers are now tracking quality and connecting pay with performance. They are negotiating rates with hospitals based on patient outcomes and patient satisfaction data. Competing based on staffing lower than competitors is not a strategy for the future. * It increases profit only until the "scandal point," where there become one too many publicized bad outcome. * Many of us also have worked at Tenet hospitals. We would prefer that what happened to Tenet not be repeated by HCA."

Healthcare workers gagged from speaking to shareholders yesterday continue to urge HCA to put a system in place by which local caregivers and managers can determine staffing levels at a local level -- similar to the systems that many of HCA's competitors have already adopted throughout California.

Media Contact: Thea Lavin c. (510) 520-7732 Kay Carney c. (510) 773-7229

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060526/SFFV003-ahttp://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060526/SFFV003-bAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West

CONTACT: Thea Lavin, cell, +1-510-520-7732, or Kay Carney, cell,+1-510-773-7229, both of SEIU

Web site: http://www.seiu-uhw.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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