Sister Rita Johnson, an angel, has gone to heaven

 Sister Rita was the longtime Chaplin of Backus hospital. She was our strength and our hope, at work and outside of work. Always asking how we were, how our families were. Ask her to pray for someone and she’d ask their name, repeat it in her head, and say they were on her list. When I left the hospital for my current position I asked for and received a blessing from her. I kidded her that she was my “undercover nun” because she was the first sister I knew who didn’t wear a habit. An angel has gone home, but she will remain a part of us.

Victory at Windham Hospital

 This week, 2 years after Hartford HealthCare ended Labor & Delivery at Windham Hospital, the state of Connecticut ruled they did not have the right to do so, that it wasn’t in the best interest of patients, and that they must restart these services. 

So many people have been a part of this struggle lead by a community coalition, Windham United to Save our Healthcare. 

AFT Connecticut is proud to be a community member. 

It gives me great hope when people stand up and stand together against the profit before patients, students and public that seems, at times, to be so prevalent.

No doubt that HHC will continue to fight this decision, and who knows what the final outcome will be. One thing for certain, the community will stand together. 

Hospital community benefit requirements: stronger is better

 (As appeared in CT Mirror 3/15/22)

Patients and their caregivers expect the chains that own Connecticut’s non-profit hospitals to invest in healthier communities. Women’s health, maternity services, housing, childhood immunization programs, lead abatement, transportation, and other needs that are identified by those directly impacted in the facility’s service area should be prioritized.  

How can we get there?  By strengthening S.B. 476 — the Governor’s proposal for improving community benefit laws — by clarifying what hospitals report on and implementing a spending floor.

To maintain their non-profit status and avoid federal and state corporate income taxes as well as local sales and property taxes, hospital owners are required to make discretionary investments in “community benefits.” Today, most of those dollars go back into the chain’s system to cover financial assistance and make up for Medicaid’s payment rates being lower than other insurers’ rates. 

At least 29 states have passed laws strengthening community benefit programs with additional state requirements. Requiring more specificity in reporting has led to increased community benefit spending. Considering the community benefit spending increases in other states, this could result in an additional $100-160 million in community benefit dollars in Connecticut. 

Improved reporting also promises to protect vulnerable communities from the loss of vital services at the hands of health chain executives uninterested in meeting patients’ needs. 

Currently, Hartford HealthCare (HHC) is attempting to permanently end labor and delivery care at Windham Community Memorial Hospital (WCMH). Nearly two years ago, our union’s members joined with the Windham United to Save Our Healthcare in calling out the chain’s executives for manufacturing a decrease in births. We demanded accountability for HHC initiating the move to justify the cuts and before seeking regulatory approval from the state’s Office of Health Strategy (OHS).

Since then we’ve called attention to HHC’s most recent Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). There is a significant disconnect between the reported findings and the actual Community Benefits Program administered by the chain at WCMH.

The 2021 assessment identified OB/GYN services and transportation as significant needs of the community. Yet HHC’s executives are barreling ahead with their scheme to keep the hospital’s maternity ward closed.

OHS has fined HHC’s executives for violating state statute, but the maternity remains shuttered.

It’s bad enough that the chain failed to address the very OB/GYN and transportation needs identified in their own CHNA. Their executives have made matters worse by forcing pregnant mothers and babies to drive 30 minutes or more on winding two-lane roads to seek maternity care elsewhere.

Chains like HHC have lamented the fiscal challenges of the pandemic to justify such cruel cuts. Yet a majority of Connecticut hospitals saw operating gains in 2020. Acute care facilities received provider relief funds of $1.1 billion, $320 million from investments, and $40 million from patient care, and increased their net assets to over $7.6 billion. 

Still the Connecticut Hospital Association vehemently came out against stronger community benefit requirements proposed last year.

SB 476 is a good start, but it does not address hospital financial assistance policies and should go further in clarifying reporting requirements. All stakeholders, including unions, advocates and providers, must be able to hold health chains accountable for contributing to the health and health equity of their communities. 

As a union, our responsibility is to advocate on behalf of fairness, transparency, and accountability for our members. In line with these values, our member nurses and health professionals support stronger community benefit requirements. 

AFT in the (White) House

 I visited the White House this week.

Actually, I was invited to the White House, and attended with Ivonne Hamm, another nurse and soon to retire First VP of UHP, AFT Local 3837 in Connecticut. 

We were invited to be representatives of the AFT, a union of 1.7 million members in public service, education, and healthcare. But we were really invited because the AFT is an activist union. 

As one of our T shirts says, “We care, we fight, we show up, we vote.” 

From LA to Boston, from Texas to Chicago, we are engaged not only in the workplace, but in our communities and in politics, and even with our sisters and brothers in other countries through international affiliations like Public Service International and others.

AFT members care for patients, students, and the public through our daily work and are involved in our communities because we are a part of our communities. 

When my own Senator, Chris Murphy, asked “What are you guys doing here?” I’m sure I made a joke about them letting anyone in, but the truth is, we were there because of the work of AFT members.

The White House was INCREDIBLE!

Everywhere there were staff in full military dress uniforms. In a couple of hallways they were sitting planing music as we strolled in. The main room was filled with white chairs in neat rows, like it was prepared for a wedding. We took a seat in row three, just feet from the Vice President and two Presidents.

When the music began playing and President Biden, VP Harris, and President Obama walked in to thunderous and sustained applause. Each spoke, with President Obama praising VP Harris and President Biden and making jokes about the reported “changes” in the White House since he left like the secret service being required to wear aviator glasses and a cat roaming the hallways. President Biden and VP Harris praised President Obama for his work to pass the ACA, and President Biden joked back to remind President Obama about “live mics.” The three of them truly seem to have a relationship of friendship and respect.

President Biden signed an executive order to close an unintended loophole that makes it difficult for some spouses to obtain affordable healthcare coverage under the ACA, if one spouse has coverage through work. He also spoke of extending Medicaid to all states and giving Medicare the right to negotiate with drug companies for lower costs. All of this is logical and fair, and should have no opposition, but over the years special interest groups like the drug and insurance industries have blocked them. 

Over the years, the AFT has advocated and worked for these changes, and THAT advocacy is why we were invited to the White House.

AG Tong discusses WCMH maternity closure

 Connecticut Attorney General William Tong was in Willimantic this week to meet with residents concerned with the closing of Labor & Delivery at Windham Hospital, led by Windham United to Save or Services, a community group dedicated to this purpose, and to do a radio program with State Representative Susan Johnson.

Here is an article from The Chronicle written by Michelle Warren

Tong discusses WCMH maternity closure

MICHELLE WARREN

Chronicle Staff Writer

WILLIMANTIC — A week after Hartford HealthCare was fined by the state for prematurely closing the maternity unit at Windham Community Memorial Hospital, Attorney General William Tong was in town this week, discussing the challenging regulatory process involving hospitals.

“The law and the regulatory infrastructure around all of this — I’ll be charitable — is very complicated,” Tong said while joining emergency responders, town officials, state legislators and other community members during lunch at Garibaldi’s Mexican Food in Willimantic.

The event was held before Tong appeared on WILI’s show “Let’s Talk About It” with state Rep. Susan Johnson, D-Willimantic.

On Wednesday, Tong spoke about the problem of large corporations “monopolizing,” including health care corporations.

“There are concentrations of market power in so many industries right now,” he said.

Given the power of the large companies, Tong emphasized the importance of the community members bringing their concerns about the closure of the Windham Hospital maternity unit to Hartford HealthCare’s attention.

“It’s really important that you elevate your voices,” he said, noting other people are “pushing in the opposite direction.”

Hartford HealthCare applied through the state Office of Health Strategy (OHS) for a certificate of need application to terminate the maternity unit services on Sept. 3, 2020.

The CON application shows the last birth occurred at the hospital in June 2020.

In its CON application, Hartford HealthCare cites the low birth rate and trouble recruiting staff as reasons for the closure.

On Feb. 8, the state Office of HealthCare Strategy announced it was fining Hartford HealthCare at least $151,000, or $1,000 a day, for closing the maternity unit before receiving approval from the state to terminate the service.

Under state statutes, Hartford HealthCare is required to apply for and obtain a certificate of need before terminating a service like the birthing unit, which OHS states Hartford HealthCare did not do.

However, OHS reduced its fine to $65,000.

In a letter Tuesday, Office of Health Strategy Deputy Director/Chief of Staff Kimberly Martone sent a letter to Hartford HealthCare Director of Strategic Planning Barbara Durdy notifying Hartford HealthCare that it would be fined $1,000 a day, from July 1, 2020, to when they “properly filed” for the CON application on Sept. 3, 2020, resulting in 65 days in violation and a $65,000 penalty.

She wrote that consistent with state statutes, Hartford HealthCare has the right to request a hearing related to its penalty.

“We remain committed to working with OHS to bring our application to a decision in a timely manner,” Hartford HealthCare Director of Media Relations Tina Varona said in an email Wednesday.

“We disagree with any penalty and are evaluating our legal options.”

She declined to comment further on the matter, including whether Hartford HealthCare planned to request a hearing.

OHS could not be reached for comment.

Many expressed concerns about the closure of the maternity unit during a CON hearing held by OHS on Nov. 10, 2021, some of whom attended the event Wednesday.

One of the main concerns raised is the time it would take for women going into labor to get to a hospital with a birthing unit, with some now traveling to The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich or Manchester Hospital instead of Windham Hospital.

Brenda Buchbinder, a member of the Windham United to Save Our HealthCare coalition, which has been vocal about its opposition to the closure of the maternity unit, said there are people in the area who don’t speak English and others who don’t have vehicles.

She said pulling the “plug” on the unit in the middle of a pandemic is “absolutely heartless.” “There is no bottom line that justifies it,” Buchbinder said.

Johnson thanked Tong for his work on the Windham Hospital issue.

“We have to regulate it to the best of our ability,” she said.

The first step, Johnson said, was setting up a process through the Office of Health Strategy.

Speaking about potential dangers on the roads heading to the hospital, Willimantic Fire Department Chief Marc Scrivener spoke about an accident involving an American Ambulance that got into a head-on accident March 25, 2021, on Route 32 in Franklin.

During that accident, 49-year-old Dawn Brett, a Willimantic resident, was killed and the ambulance driver and front-seat passenger were hospitalized with minor injuries.

Scrivener said when Willimantic has to send an ambulance to Backus for a medical transport, including a woman going into labor, it takes away staff that would respond to Willimantic calls.

He said two Willimantic EMTs respond to each ambulance call, noting the Willimantic Fire Department has “minimal staffing” as it is.

“That’s a downstream effect that you might not think of,” Scrivener said.

Tong said often, private institutions that operate like for-profit institutions make decisions “based on dollars and cents” and justify those decisions with spreadsheets and reports.

However, he said, the impact service changes will make on the community should also be considered.

Tong said in “really extreme circumstances,” the situation can “cost lives.”

Follow the Chronicle on Twitter - @thechroniclect.