Editor’s note: Catholic Medical Center is an NHPR underwriter. We cover them just like any other institution, and they have no role in our editorial decisions.
A group of nurses from North Carolina are urging New Hampshire officials to stop a national healthcare chain from taking over Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, citing their own experience with the company.
“The community needs to know what happened to our hospital, because the same thing will happen to their hospital,” said Kelly Coward, a nurse and union rep at Mission Hospital in Asheville.
HCA has faced mounting scrutiny in North Carolina since taking over Mission Hospital in 2019. The state’s attorney general alleges the quality of emergency services and cancer care has plummeted, and state regulators found that errors and delays in its emergency department were putting patients at risk.
The deal between HCA and Catholic Medical Center is currently under review by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, after the Manchester hospital’s board voted to approve the sale in June. A spokesperson for Attorney General John Formella said he is aware of the North Carolina lawsuit, but declined to comment further on a pending review.
In a full-page ad in the New Hampshire Union Leader last month, National Nurses United – the union that represents nurses at the Asheville hospital – called on Formella to prevent HCA from expanding its footprint in the Granite State.
“When we heard HCA was attempting to buy Catholic Medical Center, we felt it was our duty as medical professionals to share our experiences and voice our opposition,” the ad reads. “In Western North Carolina, we know what happens when HCA becomes a community’s primary health care provider – the bottom line is prioritized over patient care.”
‘The community needs to know what happened to our hospital, because the same thing will happen to their hospital.’
Kelly Coward, a nurse and union rep at Mission Hospital in Asheville
The country’s largest for-profit hospital operator, HCA Healthcare announced plans to acquire the Manchester hospital last year. It would be the company’s fourth in New Hampshire, along with Portsmouth Regional Hospital, Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester and Parkland Medical Center in Derry.
Catholic Medical Center has been struggling financially, and its leaders have said joining a larger health system is essential to the hospital’s long-term survival. They have pitched HCA as a partner that will invest more in patient care, while preserving the hospital’s religious identity.
The nurses’ union alleges that Mission Hospital has seen lengthening ER wait times, chronic understaffing and shortages of critical supplies under HCA’s ownership, claims also made in the attorney general’s lawsuit. They also say some cancer patients have had appointments canceled or been forced to seek care elsewhere due to shortages of chemo drugs and the departure of multiple oncologists.
“It’s extremely unsafe and our quality of care has declined dramatically,” said Coward, who’s been with Mission Hospital for 27 years and works in the cardiovascular ICU.
HCA has denied allegations of inadequate staffing and substandard care. A spokesperson for the company, Ellen Miller, noted that nurses and Mission Hospital are in the midst of contract negotiations and accused the union of tactically spreading “misinformation.” She said HCA has a 40-year track record of caring for patients in New Hampshire.
“We are excited about the opportunity to ensure the long-term viability of Catholic healthcare and serve the healthcare needs of the Manchester community,” she wrote in an email. “This combination will allow us to continue providing the highest quality care for patients close to home, avoiding the need for residents to travel out of New Hampshire to access the care they need.”
A spokesperson for Catholic Medical Center said the hospital’s senior leadership and board of trustees, along with the Diocese of Manchester, “reviewed and evaluated the facts” about Mission Hospital while conducting due diligence for their sale.
“We have seen first-hand the high-quality healthcare HCA provides to its patients and through this deliberate and careful process, are confident that this partnership will enable CMC to continue to provide high-quality healthcare to Manchester,” CMC spokesperson Laura Montenegro wrote in an email.
NC regulators allege understaffing, diminished care under HCA’s watch
HCA acquired the regional nonprofit Mission Health System – including its flagship hospital in Asheville – in 2019. As a condition of the sale, HCA pledged to maintain certain services for at least 10 years, including emergency services and cancer care.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s lawsuit, filed in December, alleges HCA broke those promises. It describes an understaffed emergency department where patients have been left waiting for basic care, sometimes being treated in an “internal processing area” set up in the waiting area that Stein alleges lacks adequate equipment and privacy protections.
It alleges that cuts to support staff have forced already overwhelmed nurses to mop and deliver food, and diagnostic equipment like MRIs has sometimes been unavailable because of a lack of technicians. Some patients arriving by ambulance have waited over an hour to be admitted, according to the lawsuit – forcing paramedics to keep looking after them instead of being available for other emergencies.
The lawsuit also alleges cancer care has diminished since HCA took over. It says the number of staffed oncology beds has declined, while understaffing, shortages of chemo drugs and other issues have caused an exodus of oncologists. Patients with complex blood cancers have had to seek care elsewhere, after a local oncology practice said they could no longer safely treat them at Mission.
An inspection by North Carolina’s health department late last year identified nine patients who were endangered by deficient care in Mission’s emergency department in 2022 and 2023, four of whom died.
Separately, an inspection by North Carolina’s health department late last year identified nine patients who were endangered by deficient care in Mission’s emergency department in 2022 and 2023, four of whom died.
The inspection documented incidents in which doctors’ orders to administer medicine were never carried out, patients’ vitals weren’t monitored when they should have been, lengthy waits for lab tests delayed critical care, patients weren’t assessed for hours after arrival and EMS providers had to stay and manage patients because the ER was so backed up.
The findings prompted an “immediate jeopardy” designation from the federal government – the most serious warning a hospital can receive, putting it at risk of losing Medicare and Medicaid funding. The designation was lifted in June after the hospital took corrective action.
Last month, an independent monitor said HCA may have violated the terms it agreed to when purchasing Mission, citing the “immediate jeopardy” findings, complaints about emergency and cancer care, and a change in its charity care policy.
HCA has denied many of the specific allegations in Stein’s lawsuit, and rejects his contention that the quality of care has declined. The company has also said it’s dealing with factors beyond its control, including sicker patients, nationwide labor and drug shortages, regulatory barriers to expansion and decisions by independent providers to stop practicing at the hospital.
In seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, HCA has argued the terms of the sale did not require it to meet any specific quality benchmarks, only to continue certain services – which it says it’s done.
Coward said things have improved in Mission’s emergency department, after federal regulators forced it to make changes. But she said the same isn’t true for other parts of the hospital.
“The nurses often talk: Is it going to take ‘immediate jeopardy’ in our department before they’ll fix it?” she said.
HCA faced scrutiny after its last hospital purchase in NH
HCA has also run into trouble with regulators in New Hampshire. When it purchased Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester in 2020, the company promised to continue labor and delivery services for at least five years – then announced it was ending those services two years later.
The attorney general’s office launched a review of whether that violated the terms of the agreement, and later reached a settlement that required HCA to pay $750,000 to a community health foundation.
In an interview last fall, Formella said that could be relevant to how regulators view other acquisitions by HCA.
“There’s no question that prior experiences with an organization will inform a review of a future transaction, and trust is really important,” he said. “So I think it is safe to say that HCA has some work to do to continue to rebuild trust with the state.”
HCA officials have said the closure of Frisbie’s maternity care was unavoidable due to declining birth rates and difficulties recruiting enough providers. They say the company has invested millions of dollars in other patient services at Frisbie, including cancer care and mental health.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66b5afd647804812b59ee6bfd6a7ff61&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nhpr.org%2Fhealth%2F2024-08-08%2Fnorth-carolina-nurses-warn-against-catholic-medical-center-hca-sale-citing-buyers-track-record&c=768629027818555454&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-08-08 11:54:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.