Don’t privatize health center, workers and family member plead
Sherri Morris of Washington, recalling the care her late mother received, tearfully asks Washington County commissioners not to sell the county health center.
Mary Cheek, a health center nurse’s aide, beseeched the county commissioners to meet with Service Employees International Union members to cut operating costs at the facility to avoid privatization.
A tearful Sherri Morris told the Washington County commissioners that her mother, who was diagnosed with early-onset dementia at age 54, needed to be institutionalized by age 58 and spent her final dozen years at the county health center.
“These people cared for her like she was their own,” Morris said of health center employees who gathered Thursday in an attempt to persuade the commissioners not to privatize the nursing home that has operated in the red for the past five years to the tune of $8,060,726.
“I can’t imagine the people of Washington County not having the health center,” Morris said during the final commissioners meeting of the year, a meeting at which, just a few minutes later, the members of the board unanimously agreed to contract with the law firm of Eckert, Seamans, Cherin and Mellott to act on the county’s behalf in the sale of the health center. Attorneys will be paid $260 an hour.
Morris’ mother, Patricia A. Rodenski, 71, died Nov. 29, 2012. Exactly four years later, news broke that the commissioners were exploring the sale of the health center in Arden, Chartiers Township, and they will now seek bids from private companies to continue its operation as a nursing home.
Leeann Howell of Washington, a licensed practical nurse and president of Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania, cited dietary, pharmacy and Medicare Part B reimbursement as topics for discussion and asked the commissioners to personally sit down to hammer out potential cost-savings.
Based on what occurred in another Western Pennsylvania county, she predicted county health center employees will be presented with pay cuts of $4 an hour and health insurance cost increases of $500 a month by a private-sector nursing home operator that will reduce the size of the facility’s staff, currently pegged at about 300.
“Our community deserves better than subpar care,” she said.
Even routine recognition of those who are retiring reflected the highly charged issue. Tonna Parker, a 34-year health center employee who is leaving as a physical therapy aide, noted that she was “blessed” to be able to provide care for both Commission Vice Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan’s mother and Commission Chairman Larry Maggi’s father.
Marsha Dykins, 60, who is retiring from the health center activities department after working in many areas for 34 1/2 years, said, “Because of them selling the health center, we were forced to make a decision I didn’t want to make. I’m lucky I had enough time I could retire.”
The commissioners did not debate the issues surrounding the sale of the 288-bed facility during the public comment segment of their meeting Thursday.
“We are willing to do whatever it takes to keep this the county home,” said Mary Cheek, a nurse’s aide who dyed her hair purple to match the SEIU T-shirts she and fellow health center employees wore as they gathered inside the public meeting room. The union contract with the county expires Dec. 31, and although negotiations are scheduled to take place Dec. 27, one county official characterized the session with health center workers as “impact bargaining,” during which the union cannot discuss the substance of an issue.
Angela Smith, a health center social worker who was hired by the county in 2003, reminded the commissioners that she is a Washington County resident, taxpayer, voter and SEIU member.
“There will be changes,” she said of a potential sale. “For-profit means exactly that. It makes me sick, actually.” She foresees “people who have worked hard all of their lives being told, ‘We have met our Medicaid quota.'”
She said medical assistance likely will no longer be an option for many once a privatized facility reaches a self-imposed cap.
Commission Chairman Maggi has said the federal and state government are pushing counties out of direct ownership of nursing homes by reducing formulas for payment. Washington, he said, is one of 16 Pennsylvania counties that own at least one nursing home. Neighboring Allegheny County has three.
In May, Timothy Kimmel, Washington County director of human services and health center administrator, pegged the cost per patient day at $296.54. Reimbursement per patient day ranged from $224.37, the Medical Assistance rate, to an average Medicare rate of $485.
Losses at the health center are pegged to approach $3 million in 2017 if the facility remains under county ownership for the entire coming year.