RNs, Fire Fighters, Community Groups and Council Work to Save Hospital

Affinity Medical Center registered nurses will meet directly with officials of Quorum Health Care which runs the Massillon, Oh., hospital demanding that it keep the hospital open, or at least until a new operator can take over the facility for continuity of the full hospital services and to respect the rights of the RNs and other hospital employees who provide care for the community.

The RNs, members of National Nurses Organizing Committee-Ohio/National Nurses United, have been in contract talks with Quorum over a first collective bargaining agreed for the 250 RNs NNOC represents at Affinity. This will be their first meeting since the sudden Quorum announcement early this month that it plans to close the hospital as soon as early March.

“We will emphatically tell Quorum that it can not just cut and run,” said Affinity RN Rose Ann Wilson.

“Quorum has profited from local residents,” Wilson said. “It has an obligation to the community that has long supported this hospital to ensure that it will continue to be here for the patients, their families, our neighbors, who need a hospital in Massillon, and the caregivers who have devoted so much of our lives to our community and patients.” 

Affinity RNs, several of whom spoke at a Massillon City Council meeting Tuesday night, strongly endorsed an emergency council ordinance, passed unanimously, to require a minimum 120 days advance notice of any local hospital closures.

Since the closure was announced, Affinity RNs have talked to hundreds of community residents who are supporting the efforts to keep the hospital open, a process, said Wilson, “that will continue, along with every avenue we can pursue to protect full hospital services in Massillon.”

One result is that over 14 local businesses have joined the Affinity RNs, as well as the Massillon fire department union, and other organizations to sign on to support legal efforts by city officials to obtain a temporary injunction against Quorum to allow more time prior to a closure and to facilitate other options to keep the hospital open.

If measures to find another operator fail, the RNs encouraged local officials to consider eminent domain as an option.

“We all know how vital Affinity is to this community,” said Affinity RN Stephanie Still, a 28-year resident of Massillon.

“Not only does this hospital employ over 800 people, but it provides life saving care to residents in Massillon and the surrounding rural areas,” said Still. “My family alone has utilized the hospital for emergency care twice; saving the life of my son and two of my daughters. That is why I have been working tirelessly with my union to help keep this hospital”

NNOC and NNU have noted the closure reflects the danger of medical care run for profit instead of public health and patient need.

“Our health security was handed over to the control of corporations who have used this community to line their pockets with little regard of the people who depend and have depended on this hospital for a century,” said Still.

“This hospital has been a beloved and important part of the Massillon community for over 100 years, but just a couple of years of corporate control by first Community Health Systems and now Quorum has run the hospital into the ground,” said Wilson.

“Now, we have the chance to resuscitate that mission of this hospital to protect it from ever facing this same situation with another operator. The only way to ensure this never happens again is for the city to take ownership of this hospital—returning it to the community hospital it once was,” Still concluded.