Possible buyer for struggling Monroe Hospital a controversial firm

Last week, hospital workers, union representatives and elected officials protested against Prime Healthcare Services outside the St. Vincent Medical Center near downtown Los Angeles, one of the six hospitals Prime may buy from the Daughters of Charity Health System, according to an Aug. 15 story in the Los Angeles Times.

Protesters are saying the for-profit company, which owns or operates 28 hospitals in eight states, including 14 in California, typically buys distressed facilities and then cuts patient services, boosts prices and lays off workers. The protest efforts are being spearheaded by the Service Employees International Union, which says Prime will reduce workers’ pensions and other benefits at the hospitals.

A May 29, 2008, article in the Los Angeles Times says Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, California, after being taken over by Prime Healthcare in 2007, “has shuttered departments, laid off 13 percent of its 1,700 staffers and canceled most private insurance contracts.” In January of 2011, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Prime had announced “significant staff reductions” at the Alvarado Hospital in San Diego it had acquired two months earlier, but would not say how many jobs had been cut.

“Prime Healthcare has a history of layoffs and huge wage and benefit cuts for its employees,” Ra Criscitiello, research analyst with the Service Employees International Union, told The Herald-Times. “If there’s going to be a Prime takeover in Bloomington, I would urge people to ask the Indiana attorney general or State Department of Health to impose conditions on Prime Healthcare like they’ve done in other states.”