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Workers plan to picket at three Tenet Healthcare hospitals on Wednesday, June 16, alleging that the facilities are understaffed and left some employees without health insurance while the company has received billions in federal COVID-19 relief funds and spent $ 1.1 billion to buy 45 surgery centers.
Employees, including respiratory therapists, housekeepers, nursing assistants and medical technicians, are represented by the National Union of Health Workers (NUHW). They will meet outside the Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Los Alamitos Medical Center in Orange County and the Lakewood Regional Medical Center in Los Angeles County.
The union represents nearly 1,000 workers at Tenet hospitals in southern California.
In a letter sent Tuesday to U.S. Director of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Rebecca Slaughter, the NUHW said it supported a request from Representative Katie Porter, D-Irvine, for a federal investigation to determine whether Tenet and other large hospital operators abused their stimulus grants and COVID relief funds.
“There is ample evidence to suggest that Tenet Healthcare has used COVID relief funds to inappropriately grow its business, enrich its executives and shareholders, and prioritize business results over patients and caregivers,” NUHW President Sal Rosselli said in the letter.
In a statement on Tuesday, Tenet spokeswoman Jennifer Bayer said the company would continue to negotiate in good faith with the union in the hope of reaching a successful resolution.
“While we value all of our employees who are represented by NUHW, we are disappointed that the union is taking this approach,” she said.
Bayer noted that while Tenent is in direct negotiations with service and maintenance employees as well as some technical employees, other environmental and dietetic services employees represented by NUHW are negotiating with Compass Group, a contractual supplier.
“In the recent past, the union has misled community members, elected officials and the public about our role in this matter,” she said. “We are not participating in these negotiations.
Rosselli said senior executives at Tenet and Glenview Capital Management, the company’s largest shareholder, would have pocketed around $ 500 million from the sale of their Tenet shares.
And according to him, it didn’t stop there.
“Tenet paid $ 750,000 in combined bonuses to two senior executives at its head office for their work during the pandemic, even though many of Tenet’s frontline staff lacked health insurance, adequate PPE and access to COVID-19 testing, ”said Rosselli.
Meanwhile, hospital workers say staff are limited.
“We are dangerously understaffed on almost every shift,” said Mailinh Nguyen, nursing assistant at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital.
Rosselli said Tenet refused to increase staff or invest in his caregivers who put their lives at risk during the pandemic.
Maria Rocha, an outsourced housekeeper at Lakewood Medical Center, said she couldn’t afford to see a doctor when she contracted COVID-19 even though she worked in the hospital.
“Tenet had the funds to take care of everyone who worked in his hospitals,” she said. “It’s time to find out where the money went.
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