@LewisBrahamI wasn't generalizing about health care unions, just reporting the fact that much of the opposition to the much needed merger of the two hospitals in a very small town ( big enough for only one, really) came from the nurse and hospital unions at the non Catholic hospital, as the prospective buyer did not plan on retaining union personnel.
I know many examples of Unionized nurses standing up for patient safety and fighting for better staffing etc, but in this case the union did little to object in the past to years of mismanagement by the non profit administration, which is why a merger or sale was the only alternative to bankruptcy
Equally at fault was the Catholic Bishop, who refused to allow the merger of the Catholic Hospital and the non-profit even after significant work arounds were developed to allow tubal ligations after caesarian sections to continue ( there were about 2
5 a year). This has been worked out in a variety of ways nationwide in other Catholic hospitals, but he canceled the deal because the sheets of the patients would have been intermingled with those of the "Faithful", as he put it.
Consequently, both hospitals remained separate and desperate. Their bonds were selling for
50 cents on the dollar. One was driven into the arms of the hedge fund and the other taken over by a large Catholic hospital chain. Neither is doing well, as they continue to compete with each other for patients and reimbursements from commercial insurance companies who can play one off against the other on price alone.
