FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sam Fettig
(c) 612-741-0662
sam.fettig@mnnurses.org
Lauren Nielsen
(c) 651-376-9709
lauren.nielsen@mnnurses.org
(St. Paul) – September 12, 2022 – Today, the Minnesota Nurses Association responded to the announcement that the Minnesota Department of Health has found the proposed mental health facility to be operated by M Health Fairview and Acadia Healthcare to be in the public interest. MNA has raised concerns about the planned facility, citing recent hospital closures by M Health Fairview and the for-profit model of Acadia Healthcare which is out of step with Minnesotans’ and nurses’ values.
The following is a statement from the Minnesota Nurses Association:
“Every day, nurses confront the ongoing staff shortages in our hospitals and experience firsthand the mental health crisis in our state. Nurses understand the need for additional mental healthcare beds. However, as frontline healthcare professionals, we recognize that there is a right way to go about it, and a wrong way.
“Nurses believe that healthcare in Minnesota should put patients before profits. We believe that safe patient care should be the top priority in Minnesota hospitals, not the profits of hospital executives or corporate bottom lines and results for shareholders. This is why we are deeply concerned with the decision to allow M Health Fairview to move ahead in partnership with a profit-driven corporation, Acadia Healthcare, which will have 85 percent ownership of this new venture.
“Right now, 15,000 nurses are on strike to oppose the corporatization of healthcare in Minnesota at the hands of hospital executives, as clinics and hospitals are closed, nurses are short-staffed, and patients are overcharged. The decision to approve this new for-profit hospital demonstrates clearly the need to finally put patients before profits in our healthcare system.”
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obviously this proposal will benefit those with insurance and those who can afford to pay.
Our healthcare system is fundamentally broken. It’s set up to extract wealth from the sick and dying. It’s a race to the bottom for the workers and patients while the executives in the boardrooms keep writing themselves bigger checks.
These executives characterize the demand of the nurses for a 30% pay increase over 3 years as a “hike” and counter with 12%. Their offer doesn’t even match inflation! They expect nurses to see their real wages fall while they golf and have their dinner parties. Rapacious scum of the earth making money hand over fist while medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in this country.
They wring their hands about proper procedure and needing a mediator before moving to strike. Pathetic excuses in the face of righteous indignation and reasonable demands. There is no place for profit extraction in healthcare–it is the vilest criminality to profiteer from a plague.
It’s well passed time that the workers in our hospitals make their voices heard and demand they and the patients they serve be treated with dignity and fairness. Nurses are heroes of the working class and deserve our unwavering solidarity.