May 15, 2024 By Brenda Pannell 3 min read

I was born at Washington Hospital and worked there for 25 years. That’s where I gave birth to my five children and most of my grandkids were born there. All of my family members and friends have received care there. I have a deep-rooted dedication to our community hospital and want to make sure Washington’s quality of care, access to services and jobs are protected. That’s why the proposed takeover by UPMC has me so worried, especially considering its recent announcement of 1,000 layoffs and drastic wage cuts.

For most of my career at Washington Hospital, I worked as a secretary and administrative associate. I’m currently a medical receptionist at Washington Physician Group. Those are exactly the types of positions that UPMC has just slashed throughout its system. UPMC executives also reduced the wages of 700 nurses by $13 an hour a few months ago. If UPMC carried out similar cuts here, they would not only be devastating to Washington’s 2,000 employees and our families, but could drag down our entire local economy.

As patient advocates have repeatedly pointed out, UPMC has a long history of galloping into local communities, promising the moon and then instead shuttering hospitals and closing down services.

In one example that’s especially distressing to me, UPMC shut down maternity services at the McKeesport and Bedford hospitals. That leaves me wondering, after generations of my family having children in Washington, will my grandkids have to drive 40 minutes to Pittsburgh to give birth?

UPMC has also closed down hospitals in Lancaster, Sunbury, Lock Haven and Braddock. In fact, the Pennsylvania Health Access Network found that about a third of all hospital mergers have resulted in a closure.

I also fear that UPMC will stop accepting many Washington residents’ insurance. I remember when UPMC announced it would reject patients who were insured by Highmark. Josh Shapiro, who was Pennsylvania attorney general at the time, forced UPMC to sign an agreement that it would take Highmark patients, but that agreement ends five years from now. What will happen then?

Yet another worry is that UPMC is using its growing monopoly power to drive up costs for patients while driving down staffing levels and quality of care. When nurses and other frontline healthcare workers don’t have adequate staff, they can’t provide safe patient care and it leads to increased burnout, exhaustion and turnover.

For all these reasons, I strongly believe that the attorney general and Federal Trade Commission – which are taking a hard look at the concerns listed above – need to put a stop to the takeover.

If a merger is actually necessary, which I’m not convinced it is, there are other health systems that don’t have UPMC’s terrible history and would make much better partners. With any merger, there must be an iron-clad agreement in place that every residents’ insurance will be accepted and workers’ jobs, wages and benefits will be protected.

For more than 100 years, our community has built up Washington Hospital to what it is today. Generations of our families have relied on our hospital’s care and jobs. Washington is part of our legacy.

We’ve seen companies come in before, make a few people very rich and then leave us out in the cold. Given UPMC’s track record and their recent announcement of widespread cuts, we can’t trust this giant corporation with the future of our health care.

Brenda Pannell is a native of Washington and has worked at Washington Health System for two and a half decades.