SAVE OUR
HOSPITALS
SAVE OUR
COMMUNITIES
With Suburban Community Hospital and Lower Bucks Hospital in Danger of Closing, Nurses Are Speaking Out.
Suburban & Lower Bucks Hospitals are in danger.
Here's what you need to know.
STOP PRIME NOW.
California-based Prime Healthcare is the fifth largest for-profit health system in the United States operating 45 hospitals in 14 states, including Suburban Community Hospital and Lower Bucks Hospital in the greater Philadelphia area. Prime’s company slogan is “Saving Hospitals. Saving Jobs. Saving Lives.” But the truth is much darker than that: According to numerous lawsuits alleging widespread fraud (see “Investigations of Prime”); local, in-hospital data, and firsthand accounts from nurses at the bedside in Prime-owned hospitals, Prime routinely:
MESSAGE TO THE COMMUNITY
Dear Community Members,
After months of bargaining for a fair contract that prioritizes patient care and respect for those who provide it, we still have no resolution, and the nurses at Suburban Community and Lower Bucks Hospitals are asking for your support.
For decades, we, the nurses, have provided the very best care for you at Lower Bucks Hospital and Suburban Community Hospital. Our hospitals started as community hospitals dedicated to our neighbors and families.
Since Prime Healthcare, the nation’s 5th largest for-profit healthcare company, bought both hospitals (Lower Bucks in 2012 and Suburban in 2016), we have been fighting an uphill battle to maintain the quality of care we have long provided and take pride in.
Prime Healthcare is headquartered in California. The owner and upper management team aren’t members of our communities, they don’t live in our neighborhoods, and they don’t seek care at Lower Bucks or Suburban Hospitals. They aren’t personally impacted by their decisions to abruptly shutter departments or staff their hospitals so poorly that the nursing staff is forced to ration care.
Prime has cut services and knowingly violated labor laws, Department of Health regulations, and the staffing guidelines in our contract. These are the things that enable us to provide the safe and excellent care our patients deserve.
We became nurses to care for you, our community, our family, our friends. We live in our hospitals’ communities; our patients are our neighbors and your families. We were once hailed as heroes – and we are still working just as hard for you. But heroes never work alone, and we need your support to ensure that we get a contract that ensures we can continue to provide safe and quality care to our patients.
Tell Prime you support the nurses who care for you. Please sign your name below and urge Prime to do right by its caregivers and the communities we serve. If you feel moved to do so, please share with your family and friends and ask them to sign in support.
TO TAKE ACTION EMAIL info@pasnap.com:
Prime,
I stand with the nurses at Lower Bucks Hospital and Suburban Community Hospital. Give them the contracts and resources they need to provide us with the care we deserve.
Our communities deserve better than Prime.
They deserve better than Dr. Prem Reddy.
Prime's Business Model
Prime's business model is the exploitation of every group involved in the delivery of healthcare, including doctors, nurses, patients, hospital workers, the government, and insurance companies. They do this at the expense of patient care and the surrounding community.
Our communities need hospitals that prioritize patients over profits, hospitals that value frontline caregivers and the retention of skilled, experienced nursing.
About
DR. PREM REDDY,
FOUNDER OF PRIME HEALTHCARE
Four years after founding Prime Healthcare in 2001, Dr. Reddy was accused by nurse managers of using “unethical” means to improve hospital finances. The managers claimed Dr. Reddy turned away uninsured patients in need of care, since uninsured patients earned hospitals much less money than insured patients.
In one instance, Reddy allegedly discharged an uninsured patient with kidney failure and suggested that the patient receive care at a county facility where they could be seen for free. State regulators found that medical personnel did not ensure that discharging the patient “would not create a medical hazard.”2 Reddy testified that he took “reasonable measures”3 to increase hospital profits and was “misunderstood.” The two nurses were awarded more than $850,000, but the case was declared a mistrial due to juror misconduct and was later settled for an unknown amount.
