Lynn Redding is a psychiatric nurse in a 12-bed geriatric unit at Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence.
This is how Redding sums up her work: “We’re all going to age. We all stand a 50-50 chance of being on my unit some day. And the question is: How do you want to be treated when you’re there?”
Redding, an energetic 65-year-old, is one of about 2,400 workers at Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital in North Providence waiting to learn this week whether the hospitals will be bought by new management that says it has a plan to keep them open.
A nonprofit based in Atlanta, the Centurion Foundation, faces a deadline this Friday to complete a deal to take over the hospitals.
Redding is eight years into her time as a nurse and she’s in no hurry to retire. She views the work as a calling – not that the work is easy.
Some of the patients she works with are confused. Most have dementia. And some are more difficult.
“Many of them come in from nursing homes, the majority of them,” Redding said, “because their behaviors have been such that they have literally been sent to us for med adjustment – we’re talking violence, attacking staff, attacking patients.”
Regardless, Redding doesn’t see it as a sacrifice to work three overnight shifts each week.
“I like it,” she said. “I love these people. They say things – the language that comes out of them would curl your hair. And yet they’re fun, they’re fascinating. You learn a lot from someone of that age, because their moments of clarity are very educational.”
Redding makes the drive to work from where she now lives on Cape Cod. To reduce hours in the car, she typically stays in Providence between her 12-hour shifts on three consecutive days.
She gave up a career as a financial adviser to become a nurse after caring for her aging mother for 13 years at her previous home in North Providence.
“Frankly,” she said, “I didn’t always love the way elderly people were treated. They’re marginalized. So I decided after she passed away that I should dive into it, and that’s what I did.”
Hospitals on the brink for years
Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital have been in limbo for a long time, losing a combined $45 million a year. Their current parent company is in bankruptcy, spurring fears that the hospitals would be shut down.
The hospitals play a vital role in healthcare in Rhode Island, attracting 50,000 emergency room visits between them each year. Many patients, particularly at Roger Williams, lack the money to pay for their care.
The Atlanta-based Centurion Foundation won state approval two years ago to buy the two hospitals, but Centurion has struggled to finalize its financing – until now.
Earlier this month, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee signed into law a bill creating an $18 million reserve fund meant to enable Centurion to complete its transaction.
“We are absolutely committed to making sure that these two hospitals remain open,” McKee said during a Statehouse ceremony attended by lawmakers, state health officials, union officials, lobbyists and others involved in getting the bill over the finish line.
The money will come from the state’s taxpayer-funded “rainy day” fund. It will remain in a reserve account to be used if Centurion is unable to make its bond payments.
Speaking at the bill-signing, state Sen. Louis DiPalma (D-Middletown) called the reserve fund a crucial step in saving Roger Williams and Fatima.
“We’ve heard of the phrase ‘too big to fail,’” DiPalma said. “What applies here is that Rhode Island is too small to let them fail… (for) our healthcare system, to let them fail. It would have been catastrophic to let that happen.”
Centurion spokesman Otis Brown said the deal is on track to close by this Friday, but lawmakers won’t breathe a sigh of relief until the deal becomes official.
Nurse Lynn Redding is hopeful.
“I think this is a go with Centurion,” she said. “I think we’re going to be in much better shape.”
Workers on the front lines as hospital finances are in the headlines
The Centurion Foundation has outlined a plan to turn around the two money-losing hospitals. It calls for adopting nonprofit status, considering new services and reinvesting revenue.
The United Nurses and Allied Professionals, one of the unions representing workers at the hospitals, initially opposed the Centurion Foundation takeover, in part because the nonprofit is financing the deal by taking on debt. The union also repeatedly pointed out that the foundation lacks experience running hospitals. But Centurion won over the union and workers like Redding by agreeing to conditions required by state regulators – and through sheer persistence.
“They’ve been really dogged about wanting to own us,” said Redding, who is the president of a branch of UNAP. “That speaks volumes to me.”
Centurion would get an annual $750,000 in management fees for operating Roger Williams and Fatima.
That pales in comparison to how the hospitals’ current owner, Prospect Medical Holdings of California, funneled hundreds of millions in dividends from its national chain over the years to top executives and other investors. Prospect presided over the deterioration of its hospitals and filed for bankruptcy last year.
The effect of all that became clear to workers like Redding.
“We couldn’t get apple sauce, sometimes, for our patients,” she said. “You know, they never went without a meal – don’t get me wrong. But there are little things like apple sauce. There were times when we had to search around for tubing for IV use.”
Despite the challenging circumstances, Redding says most workers stayed on the job because of a sense of duty.
“New people were avoiding us like the plague,” she said. “However, those who were with us stayed, because they’re saying, ‘Who’s going to take care of the patients if we all ditch?’”
