Long-simmering tensions between Steward Health Care System and the union representing most of its nurses boiled over Tuesday as the union said its members authorized a one-day strike at Quincy Medical Center after the Steward-owned hospital closed a 40-bed medical surgical floor.
Late last month, the Massachusetts Nurses Association was notified that the money-losing Quincy hospital, acquired by Boston-based Steward in 2011, was shutting down the medical surgical floor and laying off 30 nurses who worked there along with 40 technicians, orderlies, and laborers, according to David Schildmeier, spokesman for the nurses association.
Comments
The Steward System is using a fly by your pants approach that fits with a profit making plan but ignores the necessity of a regional design for a rational health care program. If an inpatient census is wanting then those patients should be cared for at facilities that are fiscally sound and can accept them. They can dissolve into outpatient services with a clinic license instead of putting trained professional's careers and sense of safety in jeopardy. For profit hospitals mean just that. Their profits and not community needs come first in spite of any protestation to the contrary.
Just so, OEKTB!!
The Quincy Hospital Emergency Room is the most badly managed unit in the hospital. After a car accident, I was taken to the ER and finally walked out when I wasn't given a blanket and some advils until they could get me in for a CAT. It was the absolute worst experience I ever had in a clinicla setting. My God, what is happening when a patient can't even gea sheet to cover themselves ? I don't know if this occured due to a shortage of staff or just lousy nursing policies. If Steward is responsible for the management of the hospital, some one must step in and do something. Many people depend on that hospital. I filed a complaint through their Ombudsman and never was contacted again.
quincy Hospital again? Not a chance.
I have one word that expresses my opinion of Quincy Hospital's Emergency Room. Ugh.
“But when a hospital is losing money the way Quincy is, you have to dedicate your resources to services that the community is utilizing.” Really? Why then, is Steward seeking to open a new maternity unit at Quincy when there are already too many maternity beds on the South Shore????
OB is great money maker. Very short stays and they will dump any mother or infant who looks slightly sick on Partners. Cerberus is not in this for the public good
Reimbursement favors outpatient over inpatient procedures. That is why so many people are forced home after surgery when should be at least overnight in a hospital. Cerberus wants to cash on this but would never say this as it would be politically unpopular in Quincy. If the public got too upset they might force local politicians to ignore the “campaign contributions” that Cerberus has given them. In addition it will help them on their campaign to replace more experienced staff with cheaper inexperienced ones.
Is this good for patient care or the people of Quincy? Of course not but what do you expect from a hospital run by a Wall Street hedge fund.
Profit before patient!
Same as it ever was.
Everyone should look at www.helenbousquet.com, to see actor Tom Hanks introduce the website of this woman.
What a Steward Health Care System hospital did to this woman is unbelievable.
Has anyone been to www.ralphdelatorre.com, which is the domain name of the CEO of Steward Health Care?
This guy wanted the CEO to know what one of his hospitals did to his mother...to put a face to the name.
Mission Accomplished.