Striking St. Vincent's Hospital Nurse to Testify
At April 18th Health Care Committee Hearing
On Ballot Initiative Measure Opposing For-Profits In State

Tenet Health Care, the States Only For-Profit Acute Care Provider, Owns St. Vincent Hospital/Worcester Medical Center, The Target of the Nurses Strike Over Inadequate Staffing/Mandatory Overtime Issues

WHAT:
Sandy Ellis, one of 535 registered nurses currently on strike against Tenet Health Care, the Santa Barbara, California-based for-profit owner of St. Vincent Hospital/ Worcester Medical Center, will provide testimony at hearings being held by the Joint Committee on Health Care on Tuesday, April 18, 2000. Ellis will testify in support of a ballot initiative that among its provisions calls for a moratorium on future conversions of non-profit health care facilities to for-profit status. The hearings will be held at the State House in Gardner Auditorium beginning at 11 a.m. The Health Care Committee is considering H. 4977, An Act to Protect the Rights of Patients and to Promote Access to Quality Health Care for All Residents of the Commonwealth, which is a bill that contains the language of the ballot initiative. The initiative is being promoted by the Coalition for Health Care, a grassroots coalition of citizens, health care clinicians, labor unions and consumer advocates who successfully gathered the signatures necessary to place a question on the November ballot. As part of the process, any ballot initiatives must first be considered by the legislature. The initiative would mandate the legislature to provide universal access to health care for all residents by July 1, 2002, establish a comprehensive patients bill of rights under managed care and a moratorium on conversions of non-profit health care facilities to for-profit status.

Ellis will testify of the St. Vincent Nurses experiences of working under the management of Tenet Health Care, which purchased St. Vincent Hospital back in 1997. Tenets activities moved the nurses to seek and elect union representation by the Massachusetts Nurses Association in 1998, with the nurses primary concerns being those related to deplorable staffing conditions. St. Vincent nurses have filed more unsafe staffing reports (475) than any of the 85 facilities where the MNA represents nurses. On March 31st, after two years of anti-union tactics, poor staffing and fruitless efforts to negotiate their first contract, the nurses decided to go out on strike when the hospital would not alter its demand to have the right to mandate 16 hour shifts for nurses as an alternative to hiring nurses needed to provide safe patient care. The MNA is a founding member of the Coalition for Health Care and an advocate for the ballot initiative.

WHEN:
Tuesday, April 18 (Hearings begin at 11 a.m.)

WHERE:
State House, Gardner Auditorium

WHO:
Sandy Ellis, RN, a nurse at St. Vincent Hospital; Sandy Eaton, RN, a member of the MNA Board of Directors and a member of the Steering Committee for the Coalition for Health Care.

CONTACT:
David Schildmeier, 781.249.0430 or 508.426.1655 (pager)
Sandy Ellis, RN 508.752.6979 or 508.854.8638

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