Providence St. Joseph Health understaffs our community hospitals, so caregivers are protesting acrossNorthern California to demand safe staffing.

If Providence can double its CEO Rod Hochman’s salary to more than $10 millionin one year, it can safely staff its hospitals.

Money isn’t the issue. In the year after Providence Health and Services gobbled up St. Joseph Health, it reported
combined profits exceeding $126 million at St. Joseph Hospitals in Napa, Sonoma and Humboldt counties.
Yet, those hospitals laid off more than 70 caregivers in the wake of the merger. Now Providence St. Joseph wants to merge with Adventist Health West, which is already planning to reduce services at its hospital in Napa County.
We can’t trust Providence St. Joseph to act in the best interests of local patients. Providence has already failed to
provide millions of dollars in charity care it was obligated to provide when merged with St. Joseph three years ago. That means patients aren’t getting the help they need to pay sky-high medical bills, while Providence pulls more money out of our communities to its corporate headquarters in Washington State.
Caregivers know that the bigger Providence St. Joseph gets, the more patients suffer. In a recent survey, 92 percent of bedside caregivers reported that their shifts are understaffed at least once a week. Nursing assistants report having to care for 20 patients at a time.

Instead of using its resources to fix the problem, Providence is trying to make it worse, demanding the unlimited
right to cancel shifts even though that would only worsen the understaffing crisis.