Registered nurses, joined by local community leaders, will hold a Thursday afternoon vigil at Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, in a new effort demanding the Daughters of Charity Health System select a buyer committing to maintaining full-service care at the facility which is for sale.
For more than a year, DCHS has been actively soliciting a buy-out partner without making any commitments to the communities served by the nonprofit hospitals that full services will be maintained, according to a June 18 press release by the California Nurses Association.
The Saint Louise Nurses Vigil is scheduled to begin at 3:45 p.m. and run through 5 p.m. on the grounds of the 9400 No Name Uno regional hospital in Gilroy.
“Our patients need a full-service hospital,” said registered nurse Donna Fisher, who has worked in South County since 1983, and at SLRH since it was built in 1989. “The nearest emergency room is a half hour drive, and when you’re having a stroke or heart attack, every minute counts. Nurses have remained committed to this hospital even after six name changes and we want the same level of commitment from any prospective buyer.”
St. Louise’s emergency department in the only one in South Santa Clara County, and serves a majority of the county’s Medi-Cal patients, according to the release. The nearest hospital with an ER or a labor and deliver unit is more than 30 minutes away.
The RNs are demanding that Daughters of Charity CEO Robert Issai make a commitment to the community and insist that any change in ownership include a pledge to keep the hospitals as full service facilities “that will continue to provide critically needed care,” the release reads. DCHS executives should also keep promises made to employees on safe staffing, high standards to assure recruitment and retention of RNs, as well as on jobs, benefits, and pensions with a transparent process in any sale transition, the nurses said.
