Nurses support Attorney General Review of Sanford-Fairveiw
(St. Paul) – March 28, 2013 – The Minnesota Nurses Association welcomes Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson’s inquiry into the possible merger of Sanford Health and Fairview Health Services and the continued corporatization of healthcare in Minnesota. Investigators need to continue to look into the effects that big corporations are having on Minnesota patients.
“We congratulate Lori Swanson for having the courage to examine any deal that further puts the operation of more Minnesota hospitals into the hands of fewer corporations,” said Walt Frederickson, RN, MNA Executive Director. “It’s time to hit the brakes on hospital mergers until we can determine what’s best for the state and especially its patients.”
Sanford and Fairview are reportedly in talks to merge, which would put the Fairview-run University of Minnesota Medical Center and the state research hospital under the control of a South Dakota company. Fairview’s Board of Directors will reportedly discuss the merger at a retreat starting April 8, 2013.
“Considering it took more than a year to accept Fairview’s acquisition of the University hospital,” Frederickson said, “it’s entirely appropriate and necessary for the A-G’s office to start public hearings on April 7. If this deal gets fast-tracked, it will be the people and patients of Minnesota who may be met with an unhappy surprise.”
As nurses previously warned during the Park Nicollet-HealthPartners merger, one size does not fit all, and any deal that impacts patients deserves close scrutiny. Especially when a deal involves tax dollars and a non-profit/for-profit relationship, then that deal deserves a microscope.
Nurses have long warned that focus on the bottom-line has cost them patient care hours and impacted patient outcomes. The concerns that hospital care had turned to a production-line process led 12,000 union nurses to walk off the job for a day in 2010. Today those fears continue to materialize. If such simple costs as staffing are cut to meet the demands of a spreadsheet, then the investment of research and medical training will be subject to the same cost-benefit analysis. What’s different here is the investment in Minnesota’s medical professionals pays off by the decade, not the fiscal year, as more than 70 percent of doctors in the state are trained here and Minnesota continues to employ tens of thousands of other medical device and health care workers.
“The state and the citizens of Minnesota have faithfully invested into the research and education at the University of Minnesota,” Frederickson said, “and we believe these resources need to stay in the control of Minnesotans. Nurses will continue to monitor and assist in the process in any way we can.”
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