U-News: HEALTH CARE WAR ROOM

NevadaLabor.com
HEALTH CARE WAR ROOM

RENOWN/WASHOE MED NURSES FIGHT FOR PATIENTS AGAINST A PROFITMONGERING MANAGEMENT

"Washoe Med: This community has been snookered!"

— From a Reno Gazette-Journal editorial

Washoe Med's chairman of the board attempts to rewrite history while erasing a venerable name

"Studies show that people still think we're a county-run hospital, but we haven't been that for over 20 years....There is a perception that a government-operated facility can't be that good and they will choose not to give money to the foundation because they think we are tax-subsidized, which is false."

— Mike Alonso, attorney and board chair

— From Washoe Medical Center renamed Renown Health
Daily Sparks Tribune, 9-22-2006

Nothing could be further from the truth. Washoe Med/Renown has been receiving huge taxpayer subsidies for indigent care since 1985, when the hospital was given away by corrupt county officials under a false promise to permanently relieve the taxpayers of the costs of indigent care. See the Washoe County Grand Jury Report available exclusively at NevadaLabor.com.

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN — Washoe Med nurses picket during a one-day strike on 6-23-2001. The issues were the same as during a 1990 organizing drive and remain today: Understaffing which erodes patient care so that the conglomerate may profit and proliferate on the backs of health care consumers and taxpayers.

RENO — Washoe Med/Renown nurses plan June 11, 2008, protest vigil against stonewalling, union-busting management

Monopolists and mass malpractice
Gasoline price fixing and greasing pols to exploit the sick
Barbwire / Sparks Tribune 4-13-2008

Washoe Med: Renowned for Ripping Us Off
Inhospitable Reno hospital terrorizes its nurses for daring to picket for an hour. Barbwire Special Web Edition 4-10-2008
Take it to the streets today!

Who's on Worst?
Nurses organize, governor Hooverized, regents piratize
Is anybody running this show?
Nurses schedule April 10 demonstration in Reno
Barbwire / Sparks Tribune 4-6-2008

BREAKING NEWS
ANOTHER WORLDWIDE PUBLIC RELATIONS COUP FOR NEVADA
Tens of thousands statewide in jeopardy as Nevada health care provider inspection system collapses
Clinics close, nurses surrender licenses

LONGTIME RURAL NEVADA CONUNDRUM: Imported doctors abused and small county patients suffer

Does your race predict your health care?
New mini-series says yes.

CNA v. SEIU: Discontent divides LV area nurses
Labor groups contest election results in fight for representation at three St. Rose Dominican hospitals

Cab passenger in accident finds no one has to pay for her injuries
After hit-and-run, she learns Nevada law contains insurance loophole for taxis

STRIKE LOOMS CLOSER — Culinary Union files for injunction against Reno Grand Sierra.
Health care costs are the issue.

BARBWIRE: The Wages of Sin
"My doctor killed me."
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-24-2008

Longtime St. Mary's hospital employee
"Fired for cancer?" in a fire-at-will state
A not very Christian tale
Reno News & Review Editorial 3-13-2008

Fired for cancer?
Reno News & Review 3-6-2008

Right-to-work / fire-at-will law plagues Nevada for more than half a century

St. Mary's Reno nurses vote 252-141 for union representation thru the California Nurses Assn.

Renown/Washoe Med nurses vote 491-213 (a landslide of almost 70 percent voting yes) to keep their union.

MORAL OBTUSENESS ALERT:
Climbing the walls at new Washoe Med
Reno News & Review 12-6-2007

Washoe Health System got a free hospital by promising perpetually free indigent care and reduced health costs to the public. The behemoth has now used its exorbitant profits to open the most expensive hotel in northern Nevada. The palace built on the pain of patient and public purse comes complete with an imperious and imperial Steve Wynn-esque orgasm of attitude for the artsy set, as noted in the 12-6-2007 Reno News & Review puff piece, above. The Reno Gazette-Journal, as always taking care of a good advertiser, editorialized on 11-8-2007 that "Renown got priorities right in its new Mill Street tower." The Gannett chain gang newspaper may not reflect the community, but it certainly represents its own community of narrow self-interest.

President Harry Truman had it right on health care in 1949

SEIU split over Nevada leader

BARBWIRE
Comeuppance for corporate welfare queens
UNION ELECTIONS AND STRIKES SPREAD ACROSS THE LAND
GOWABUNGA!
Renown/Washoe Med nurses vote, UAW strikes
California Nurses Assn. competes with SEIU for Nevada nurses
Reno City Council rolls over and goes belly up for Cabela's
SPECIAL INTERNET EDITION 9-25-2007

BARBWIRE: BOXING PANDORA
DAILY SPARKS TRIBUNE 9-23-2007

Statewide 16,000-member senior citizens group supports
Renown/Washoe Med nurses union drive

BARBWIRE: Culinary negotiates, nurses agitate,
both may vacate and demonstrate
DAILY SPARKS TRIBUNE 9-16-2007

NLRB sets election for Reno Renown/Washoe Medical Center nurses

BARBWIRE
LABOR DAY 2007: Labors of Love
9-2-2007
Party like it's 1929
Union-busting Reno hospital offers excuses for rape and pillage
8-12-2007
Washoe Med renown for toxic sludge
8-5-2007

NEW! 1995 Washoe Med Grand Jury commentary
Additional columns just uploaded from our archives

NevadaLabor.com Statewide Health Care News Roundup & Archives

DoctorLawyerWatch.com

Copyright © 2004-2007 Andrew Barbano

WELCOME TO NEVADALABOR.COM'S
NEW HEALTH CARE WAR ROOM

DEAR NEVADA LABORITES: SINCE HEALTH CARE IS THE HOTTEST POLITICAL ISSUE IN THE COUNTRY, (yes, health care deficiencies are only magnified by our perpetual wars), it's high time that we started a health care war room to go along with all the rest. (See below.)

The Culinary Union is threatening strikes north and south.

The big sticking point — you guessed it! — health care.

The merger of the state's largest health care insurers threatens to make Nevada the most concentrated (translation: monopolistic) insurance market in the country. Once again, the Silver State aspires to the number one position at the bottom of the barrel.

Nothing illustrates the problem better than the bitter fruit of privatization known as Renown Medical Center, the former public hospital once called Washoe Medical Center in Reno.

For the first time, the damning 1995 Washoe County Grand Jury Report about the theft of the hospital is available online. Right here. Who else would do it? (Who else would keep a copy after all these years?)

I have also uploaded for the first time my 1995 Barbwires about the heist. Selected additional information will be posted over time, but right now, the front burner issue is the union re-election scheduled at Renown/Washoe Med for Sept. 25-27, 2007.

Here's the official word from Nevada State AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Danny Thompson:

9-19-2007

TO: All affiliates

RE: Nurses fight at Renown Medical Center

Over the last few months, nurses at Renown Medical Center (formerly Washoe Medical Center) have decided to form a union with Service Employees Local 1107.

The nurses were previously members of Operating Engineers Local 3 and all of Nevada labor supported them in a difficult first contract. OE 3 is 100 percent supportive of the nurses joining SEIU.

The employer, Renown, is refusing to honor the election and has subjected the nurses to all kinds of harassment.

The delegates at the Nevada State AFL-CIO convention supported a resolution to stand with the Renown nurses in their demand that the employer stay neutral in the election and quickly get to the bargaining table and negotiate a contract that respects the hard work of Reno nurses.

The resolution also provided that each Nevada State AFL-CIO affiliate with a relationship with Renown commit to sending a formal letter of support to the nurses and a letter to the employer, condemning its actions.

Please send those letter today. The nurses' vote starts on Sept. 25.

FAX the company's top executives
Jim Miller, Renown CEO, (775) 982-4353
Ron Laxton, administrator, (775) 982-4111

Renown nurses fax: (775) 327-4911

Thank you.

In Solidarity,

Danny Thompson

For a depressingly complete picture of what Renown/Washoe Med has done to this community and its own employees since current management ripped it off from the public in 1985, use the NevadaLabor.com search engine for the words Washoe Med.Then get set to read awhile. (The 4-8-2001 Barbwire has a lot of archival links.)

Here are selected 1995 Barbwires commenting on the scandalous Washoe County Grand Jury Report.

Here's the Grand Jury Report itself downloadable in Adobe Acrobat Reader .pdf format.

Here's the title page, also in Acrobat Reader.

Now start writing and faxing those letters to the Washoe Med fat cat execs!

Be well. Raise hell.

Andrew Barbano, Editor

DoctorLawyerWatch.com

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