EAST PROVIDENCE – Teamsters Local 251, the largest bargaining unit at Lifespan, covering 2,300 workers at Rhode Island Hospital, last week announced its “full support” of the proposed merger between Lifespan and Care New England and expressed concern that the merger “is falling victim to bureaucratic delay tactics.”
The proposal, unveiled a year ago, would create a single health system named Lifespan with more than $2 billion in patient revenue, more than 17,500 full- and part-time employees, more than 3,000 affiliated physicians, and about 70 percent of hospital beds in the state. (READ MORE)
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The plan also calls for moving Butler Hospital to a new facility close to Rhode Island Hospital; creating a new Brain Science Institute there; and leveraging the relocation of Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School to that area, to create “a cohesive academic medical campus rivaling those in Boston and New Haven,” as an issue brief put it.
The plan has already gotten federal approval, but the biggest challenge is getting through the state approval process required under the Hospital Conversions Act, which involves reviews by the R.I. Department of Health and the state attorney general’s office.
Just preparing the state application took the two systems more than nine months, and in early June, after they filed the document – about 50,000 pages – it was rejected as “inadequate.”
In a joint news release, the state agencies said their primary concern was that the applicants had refused to sign the merger application’s attestation clause, drafting their own clause instead. In addition, the agencies cited questions about the confidentiality of the peer review process for the application and about ensuring complete access to internal documents.
In their announcement, the Teamsters, who said they had carefully considered the proposal and had “in-depth discussions with hospital leaders,” urged regulators to begin reviewing the application as filed.
“The refusal to review the application … is jeopardizing the chance to make the state’s health care system a regional leader,” the union said in a news release.
Local 251 Secretary-Treasurer and Principal Executive Officer Joseph J. Bairos cited the “bad economy” and its impact on jobs in the state and said “it strikes us odd that a proposal to boost our economy and enhance our health care system would be tied up in a bureaucratic stalemate” given the situation.
“Our members believe strongly in the merits of this merger and simply ask that state regulators give it a timely review,” he said.
Lifespan is a nonprofit health care system – including The Miriam, Bradley, Newport and Rhode Island/Hasbro Children’s hospitals – that has 11,140 employees, 2,677 affiliated physicians and 1,155 licensed beds as of the end of fiscal 2006. Additional information is available at www.lifespan.org.
Care New England Health System is a nonprofit health care system with 6,439 employees, 1,519 physicians, 613 licensed beds and 162 infant bassinets as of 2006. Founded in 1996 by Butler Hospital, Kent Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital, it has grown to include Care New England Home Health and one Care New England Wellness Center. To learn more, visit www.CareNewEngland.org.
