Health center employees protest possible sale
Jodi DePaoli, a certified nursing assistant at Washington County Health Center, holds a sign reading “Save Our Home” along with other employees of the health center at the Washington County commissioners’ meeting Thursday. Employees and supporters gathered to protest a possible sale of the health center.
Supporters of the county health center attended the Washington County commissioners’ meeting to protest a possible sale of the facility. County Commission Chairman Larry Maggi said the county has lost more than $9 million in the past four years because of health center costs.
Mary Cheek, a certified nursing assistant at Washington County Health Center, dyed her hair purple to show support for the health center at the county commissioners’ meeting Thursday.
About two dozen Washington County Health Center employees held up signs protesting the possible sale of the facility at Thursday’s meeting of the county board of commissioners.
The three-year contract for the approximately 300 health center workers, members of Service Employees International Union Health Care, expires Dec. 31.
Dawn Futrell, administrative organizer for the SEIU unit, said of the commissioners, “There’s a lot we’d like to talk to them about before they take drastic measures. The workers are committed to saving the health center. They’ve devoted all their lives to taking care of those folks in the beds.”
Commission Chairman Larry Maggi called the SEIU representatives and the health center workers “very respectful” after Thursday’s meeting and continued, “The commissioners are not contemplating this without heavy hearts. We all have families, and we understand the concerns. Four counties are going through this. The federal and state governments are pushing us out of the process. Our concern is, down the road, there may not be a market for a health center. There are 16 counties (in Pennsylvania) that have health centers right now, and four including us, are going through the process.”
Armstrong County opened bids for the sale of its health center in early November.
Futrell said based on her experience in another county, she expects the Washington County facility’s state-determined, four-star rating (out of a possible five) to drop precipitously if the health center is sold to a for-profit enterprise.
“That was news to me,” Maggi said. “It needs to be checked.”
The health center has been subsidized by the county’s general fund since 2011. This year’s budgetary transfer, finalized Wednesday, has reached $3.1 million, according to the county’s Finance Department.
Maggi told the Observer-Reporter earlier this week that county-run nursing homes, once the norm in Pennsylvania, are becoming scarcer every year as state and federal funding decreases.
The commissioners have taken no formal action to market the 149,000-square-foot health center in Arden, Chartiers Township, which was constructed in 1977, and Maggi said he doesn’t expect to do so until next year.
“We’ve been able to subsidize it with gas and oil money, and we’ve tried multiple solutions, spending money trying to save it on consultants and accountants. A sale is a last resort. It’s not an easy decision. It’s one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make as a commissioner. We wanted to make sure we did our due diligence before we even explored the possibility.”
Futrell said she hopes county residents apply pressure to the three-member board of commissioners. Judy Keron, whose husband is a resident of the Alzheimer’s wing, asked the commissioners to reconsider.
Although the county does not plan to raze the health center or sell it to an entity that would use it as anything but a nursing home, Maggi said he’s gotten questions from family members of residents who assumed a sale of the facility would be the same as closing it.
“I have gotten some letters,” he said. “They think those people are going to be put out, and they’re not.”
Futrell said no bargaining sessions have been scheduled, but she expects talks to resume soon.
Sale of the health center has come up at previous contract negotiations, but the SEIU is taking this potential very seriously, and Futrell does not view the potential divesting of the property as a mere bargaining chip in negotiations.
“I think the rubber may have hit the road here,” Futrell said. “That it has come this far, it’s a heavier lift this time.”
Over the past several years, county officials have said their objective has been to see the health center break even. The facility last turned a profit in 2010, when it brought in $826,000 more than operating expenses. Since then, the red ink has totaled $13,460,726.
Commissioner Joe Ford, who submitted his resignation from the board in 1998, proposed placing the health center on the market during his tenure as county commissioner. A strike by health center workers in the early 1990s had county salaried employees preparing food, delivering trays to patients and cleaning the facility.
At a meeting of the Washington County Salary Board that followed the commissioners’ meeting, Canton Township resident Frank Byrd urged the commissioners to consider the sale of the 288-bed facility.
“I don’t think government should be involved in health care in the first place,” Byrd told the salary board, of which the three commissioners are members.