Can Vanguard Afford Safe Staffing?
YOU BET THEY CAN!
We the nurses at St. Vincent are committed to establishing safe staffing for our patients.
Management has implied that they cannot afford to provide the safe staffing we all need.
However, St. Vincent is a highly profitable hospital. Here are the facts:
- St. Vincent Hospital is owned and operated by Vanguard Health Care which is a for-profit, investor owned corporation based in Nashville Tennessee. The majority owner of Vanguard is The Blackstone Group, one of the largest private equity investment firms in the world.
- Over the last two years, St. Vincent posted $50 million in profits for Vanguard’s wealthy investors.
- Vanguard has lots of money for acquisitions: last year alone they acquired the Detroit Medical Center health system for 1.5 billion dollars. They are actively looking to purchase more hospitals around the country this year, including Athol Memorial Hospital in Massachusetts.
- The Blackstone Group is run by some of the wealthiest men in the world. The CEO of Blackstone was the highest paid CEO in America in 2008 and has a five-year compensation package paying him 4.7 billion dollars.
Think of these facts when interim CEO Joe Mullaney places ads in the paper degrading you for having the audacity to demand the time to safely care for your patients. Think of these facts at 2 a.m. when you have an unsafe patient assignment and those alarm bells are going off, when your license is on the line and your supervisor, who has already flexed down two nurses who could help you, tells you “just do the best you can.”
It’s Time To Lift the Veil Off Vanguard’s Corporate Greed
It’s Time to Invest in Patients Not Profits
It’s Time for Safe Staffing … Now!
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