Updated at 4:40 p.m.
PROVIDENCE – Blackstone Boulevard traffic on the East Side of Providence slowed to a crawl this afternoon as drivers rubbernecked the sight of a small but vocal group of protesters marching outside of Butler Hospital. Unionized employees of Butler and Women & Infants hospitals picketed near their respective employers to protest layoffs and Care New England’s refusal to reduce executive compensation, despite the health care entity’s loss of some $40 million in a recent six-month period. Fifteen and six unionized employees at Butler Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital, respectively, have been given two weeks’ notice, said Patrick Quinn, executive vice president of District 1199 SEIU New England. (A flyer distributed at the protest indicates that CNE plans to eliminate 12 front-line positions at Butler- mental health workers, social workers and a certified occupational therapy assistant – and six positions at Women & Infants – in radiology, pediatrics, media, patient education and family planning services.)
“If everyone has to tighten their belts, executives should, too,” said Quinn. “Before eliminating front-line positions, [CNE] should reduce executives’ compensation.” CNE’s most recent tax filing revealed that President and CEO Dennis Keefe earned roughly $1.5 million in 2014.
Picketers called on Care New England management to opt for quality care over excessive corporate compensation. On April 26, CNE announced that an undisclosed number of employees would be let go. Several days earlier, it announced plans to sell Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket to Prime Healthcare Foundation (which owns Landmark Medical Center and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island) and to be acquired by Partners HealthCare in Massachusetts, which recently offered a buyout to 1,600 of its employees.
Representing more than 2,200 employees at Butler and Women & Infants, SEIU District 1199 New England will not take a position on CNE’s plans until it reviews CNE’s application with regulatory authorities, which is yet to be filed. The union says it will focus on the acquisition’s impact on services, the workforce and the contract. Because CNE is a charitable organization, the union wouldn’t want to see money donated to CNE for services in Rhode Island going for services in Massachusetts, Quinn added.
Quinn attributed CNE’s financial woes to purchasing Memorial Hospital, paying millions of dollars in executives’ compensation – even in the face of CNE’s huge losses – and declining use of Women & Infants. Of the usage dip in the neonatal intensive care unit, Quinn credits the hospital’s success in reducing the number of premature births. “That has a good outcome for patients, but a bad outcome for the bottom line of the hospital.” Thanks to the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits, small medical problems don’t turn into big ones, he said, yet that leads to reduced hospital use by insured individuals.
Of the nearly $40 million in losses in the six months ending March 31, unaudited reports indicate that Women & Infants, Butler and Kent were responsible for approximately $14 million, almost $3.2 million and nearly $1.4 million, respectively. Memorial’s losses during that period were nearly $12 million.
Declining to provide additional information about the previously announced layoffs, Jim Beardsworth, CNE spokesperson, said, “We’ve been very candid about these things, but it’s a long-term process to get us … at break-even or slightly better. We have to be realistic and diligent in our process.”
Encouraging people to recognize there’s no immediate action that will right CNE’s financial ship, Beardsworth noted that CNE and Partners HealthCare have collaborated already. The cardiology program at Kent Hospital, which brought cardiology services from a Partners HealthCare facility in 2009, has expanded to a system-wide affiliation in 2014. “We brought some world-class cardiac care here and only in the most complicated cases have we not kept that care here,” he said.
Because CNE couldn’t make Memorial work, Quinn reported union support for the concept of selling Memorial Hospital. Of the proposed acquisition by Partners HealthCare, he said, “The [acquisition] in and of itself is not bad; the devil is in the details. [While] we don’t know what they’re proposing … a nonprofit academic teaching hospital that’s focused on good outcomes [as is Partners HealthCare] is better than with a for-profit hospital answering to shareholders.”
Nancy Kirsch is a contributing writer for PBN.
