Nurses from St. Louise Hospital in Gilroy held a vigil Thursday in light of the news that the hospital's current owner is selling the non-profit hospital. They say the hospital's current owner --- a Catholic organization called Daughters of Charity -- is a nonprofit organization and the nurses fear that whatever for-profit company purchases St. Louise won't share the same vision. Currently, St. Louise serves a largely uninsured and low-income population.

Re "California nurses association plays hardball" (Viewpoints, June 17): Bruce Maiman seems to have let his dislike of the California Nurses Association cloud his understanding of an important bill with broad support, AB 503. Multibillion dollar hospital chains get huge tax breaks by incorporating as not-for-profits, operating to benefit the community. Last year, The Greenlining Institute conducted a study and found that sketchy reporting requirements leave us largely in the dark about the community benefit activities that are supposed to earn that tax break.

We moved to Modesto about 20 years ago to raise our families and soon after began our nursing careers at Memorial, working on the floor then with critically ill patients in the intensive care unit. For most of that time Memorial has been a great place to work. For a large regional medical center, we still felt like a community hospital with neighbors caring for neighbors. Our hospital changed dramatically when we were bought by the large health care chain, Sutter Health. Over the last few years, we have been asked to do more with less.

Assembly Bill 503 pending before the Legislature would amend California nonprofit hospitals’ reporting rules, required due to their exemption from corporate income taxes.The California Nurses Association is a proud co-sponsor of that bill and was surprised by Bruce Maiman’s criticism of our role promoting it, (“ State nurses group plays hardball,” Viewpoints, June 17). The accusation that the nurses association distorted the dialogue could not be further from the truth and is more appropriate for Maiman’s former work as a radio talk show host than the more measured, well-informed opinions readers expect to see on the Op-Ed pages of The Sacramento Bee.