Nurses Say Hospital President Should Be “Ashamed” for Firing Nurses at Kent Hospital

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

GoLocalProv News Team

 

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Nurses may be currently the most celebrated profession in America, but that hasn't stopped the fiscal realities of the struggling healthcare system in Rhode Island from slashing jobs.

Seven registered nurses in the dialysis unit at Kent Hospital were laid off and replaced by a "questionable" for-profit company, charges Trish Criner, RN, President of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) Local 5008. 

"The nurses who have faithfully and compassionately served in the Kent dialysis unit have been an integral part of the hospital's COVID-19 response efforts. Care New England's decision to fire them at a time when they have been risking their own health and safety is both callous and reckless. Kent Hospital President Robert Haffey should be ashamed,” said Criner.

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Colorado Company Tapped - Has Paid Millions in Legal Settlements

DaVita, a Denver-based, for-profit company, was chosen by Kent Hospital to manage in-patient dialysis care and replace the union nurses. Over the past decade, DaVita has paid more than a billion dollars in settlements with the U.S. Justice Department and whistleblower payments, according to Justice Department documents and press reports.

According to the United States Justice Department, DaVita settled with the government and was forced to pay $350 million for illegal kickbacks in 2014.

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DaVita and the U.S. Department of Justice have reached settlements for hundreds of millions

In a landmark case, DaVita paid a record whistleblower settlement, the Denver Post reported in 2015. "DaVita HealthCare Partners said Monday it will pay up to $495 million to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit accusing the Denver company of defrauding the federal Medicare program of millions of dollars. The company, which said it does not admit any wrongdoing, has now settled its third whistle-blower lawsuit since 2012, with payouts totaling nearly $1 billion," wrote the Post. 

In 2017 the Justice Department wrote, "HealthCare Partners Holdings LLC, doing business as DaVita Medical Holdings LLC has agreed to pay $270 million to resolve its False Claims Act liability for providing inaccurate information that caused Medicare Advantage Plans to receive inflated Medicare payments, the Justice Department announced today. DaVita is headquartered in El Segundo, California." 

“DaVita has been accused of manipulating lower-income patients into an insurance scheme to drive up their own profits. President Haffey's questionable judgment in this matter will undoubtedly jeopardize patient care for the want of marginal fiscal return, and we will not forget,” added Criner.

According to an article in the Denver Post in 2017, “Dialysis giant DaVita is accused in a federal lawsuit of misleading shareholders in an elaborate effort to inflate its financials by intentionally steering poor patients toward private insurers that paid 10 times more for dialysis treatments than the government.”

 

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Kent Hospital

Kent Defends Decision

Kent Hospital defended the decision to tap DaVita, and the need to save money in this healthcare and economic crisis.

“Like many hospitals our size in our state, Kent has made the decision to move towards contracting our in-patient dialysis services. Kent chose DaVita based on their clinical expertise, quality, the financial benefit, and their relationships with several other hospitals in Rhode Island. DaVita has offered the affected nurses an opportunity to work for them moving forward," said Robert Haffey, President and COO, Kent Hospital in a statement to GoLocal.

"While this was a difficult decision, we made it carefully and in response to the changing financial climate in healthcare," he added.

Kent's parent company Care New England reports that the hospital group lost a total of $44.5 million in March.

Care New England posted $15.2 million in operating losses and $29.3 million in non-operating losses.

 

No Enforcement

A story in the New York Times reported that DaVita and Fresenius - the two major dialysis chains - were central to a major scam with the American Kidney Foundation.

One of the nation’s largest public charities steered financial aid to patients of its two biggest corporate donors — the dialysis chains DaVita and Fresenius — while denying help to people who used smaller, unrelated clinics, in violation of anti-kickback laws, according to a federal whistle-blower lawsuit unsealed this week in Boston.

The charity, the American Kidney Fund, helps patients who need dialysis by paying their health insurance premiums and other costs for treatment. But under a longstanding federal agreement intended to prevent illegal kickbacks, the charity is supposed to provide help based solely on a patient’s financial need, and not favor companies that donate to it.

Ultimately, the Justice Department did not take enforcement action in the case. "The American Kidney Fund is pleased to hear today that the U.S. Department of Justice, after a lengthy investigation that began in 2016 and with which we cooperated fully, has declined to intervene in the case. We now know that this suit was brought by a former employee who, prior to making this complaint, was terminated for cause," said the organization in a statement in 2019.

Online Petition

UNAP launched an online petition urging Care New England to reverse its course of action and garnered more than 1,000 signatures in a matter of days. 

UNAP Local 5008 represents more than 1,500 Registered Nurses, Certified Nursing Assistants, Emergency Room Techs, Endoscopy Techs, Surgical Techs, Orderlies, and Environmental Employees at Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island.

 

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