Community Forum February 11: Building a Healthy Pierce County
Are the Franciscans and MultiCare serving their healthcare mission in our community?
Pierce County health systems: MultiCare and the Franciscans have been extraordinarily successful, earning millions in profits in 2011. Yet even with staggering profits, and outlandish
CEO compensation, the Franciscans and MultiCare are seeking to cut healthcare jobs and limit workers’ access to affordable health benefits. Despite enormous wealth in these health
systems that dominate Peirce County, the health status of county residents lags shamefully behind King and Thurston Counties. Tacoma healthcare workers are seeking to create a healthy economy and a healthy community.
Join SEIU Healthcare 1199NW President Diane Sosne, RN and healthcare workers from St. Joseph’s Medical Center, St. Clare’s Hospital and Good Samaritan to learn more about efforts to ensure our healthcare providers are serving our community.
Saturday, February 11
10:30 AM – 12:00
IBEW Hall, 3049 S 36th St. Tacoma
Prioritize Patients Before Profits
The Franciscans too often prioritize market or corporate values over patients and quality care. We encounter used oxymeters, poorly maintained lifting equipment, and inadequate cleaning supplies which are a result of profits before patients. These misplaced values were evident in management’s proposal and we called for the Franciscans to prioritize their greatest asset – their workers. We expect mission based values that respect our labor with a fair wage, honor our families with affordable healthcare, and appreciate our commitment with a chance to train up the career ladder to higher paying jobs in the system.
“They would rather save a dollar than deliver quality care. Those are their values, not ours. We challenged them to honor our mission and commitment to caring.”
Art Johnson, Materials Management
Despite a profitable 2011, St Clare’s continues to make cuts. From Low census to cuts in supplies to “cheaper” linen, priorities seem aligned around money. At the bargaining table market based increases and inadequate across the board increases, expensive and unpredictable health care costs, and no protection from low census continue to drive the conversations.
January 10, 2012
Joseph Wilczek, Chief Executive Officer
Franciscan Health System
Senior Vice President
Divisional Operations
Catholic Health Initiatives
1717 S. J Street
Tacoma WA 98405
Dear Mr. Wilczek,
We are the Bargaining Committee at St. Joseph’s Medical Center and we are recommitting ourselves in 2012 to providing the best quality care to our patients. To achieve this high standard of Care in the New Year we need the following:
- New oximeters, rather than the 3 to 4 times recycled ones we currently use.
- Shampoo caps for our bed ridden patients, especially in oncology.
- A bladder scanner for our hospice house patients, so we can avoid un-necessary catheritizations
- Better quality linen that doesn’t stretch when we try to turn our patients.
- More microfiber mops and rags that allow us to clean properly and efficiently.
- Pillows and blankets for our dialysis patients rather than making them bring their own and risking infection issues.
- Properly functioning lifts and more slings to save our patients from falls and our backs from injury.
- More staffing! Too often we work double quads alone, we have too many patients to give the quality care standard our patients need.
- Filling positions when people leave to insure safe staffing.
- More garbage pickups so we don’t attract rodents in the hospital.
- Bringing our phone operators back into the individual hospitals so we can effectively call codes.
- Heat wraps for new mothers.
As your frontline staff that make healthcare work, we need the respect and dignity of,
- Affordable healthcare to take care of our families.
- Fair wages to pay our rent, our bills and feed our children during these hard economic times.
- A Low Census Fund to insure a regular check and FTE that we were promised when hired.
- A training fund to help us advance our healthcare careers and live into the American dream.
- A meaningful process to end bias and prejudice in the workplace.
Finally we need an end to the harmful narrative that the Franciscans aren’t financially secure. The Franciscans have achieved great abundance with margins of 12% in 2011 and appreciate your leadership in this success. As mission driven employees we call on these resources to be directed at quality care and quality jobs.
Sincerely,
St. Joseph’s Bargaining Team
We are Stronger Together!
Open bargaining was a success – over 35 blue shirts and members from all over St. Clare showed up to support the bargaining team and deliver the message. “We’re living with very small margins for error in our family budgets. I work two jobs to make ends meet. The Franciscan’s had a 12%, 147 million dollar profit in 2011. We make healthcare work and need to share in that success, says Gail Carriker, CNA Med-Tech.
The energy in the room was positive and powerful as we showed our unity, and the stories we told moved each other and reminded us that we need to stick together more than ever. When we are united we can prevail.
