Ann Arbor-based Michigan Medicine and Lansing-based Sparrow Health jointly announced a projected merger statement connected December 8 that volition instrumentality effect successful the archetypal fractional of 2023.
The Sparrow Health committee of directors approved the woody connected November 28 and the University of Michigan Board of Regents, the absorption assemblage liable for the assemblage wellness attraction system, approved it connected December 8.
In the corporate-speak that serves to conceal the fiscal interests driving the deal, a property connection said: “Sparrow Health System volition articulation University of Michigan Health nether a projected statement that volition grow services to mid-Michigan residents, supply entree to the highest level of care, amended facilities and technology, and statesman a caller section successful Sparrow’s storied history.”
What the property merchandise does not explicate clearly, however, is that Michigan Medicine is taking implicit Sparrow Health, a infirmary strategy that has been serving the Lansing and mid-Michigan portion for the past 127 years. Michigan Medicine volition walk $800 cardinal to get 115 attraction sites presently operated by Sparrow Health, including six hospitals that scope from Ionia successful the northwest, Charlotte successful the southwest and Carson City successful the north, and wrong the metropolis of Lansing, the superior of Michigan.
In a study successful Crain’s Detroit Business, Marschall Runge, CEO of Michigan Medicine and dean of the UM Medical School, said that “two-thirds of the investments volition beryllium successful installation improvements and the past 3rd volition spell to ‘substantive’ superior investments, specified arsenic caller buildings and ample exertion investments.”
Michigan Medicine CEO Runge is presently the highest paid University of Michigan employee, with an yearly wage of $1.57 million.
The merger announcement comes astir 10 weeks aft a months-long declaration conflict by 6,000 nurses astatine Michigan Medicine was betrayed by the Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) and its Ann Arbor-affiliate, the University of Michigan Professional Nurse Association (UMPNC).
While the Michigan Medicine nurses voted overwhelmingly for onslaught enactment to triumph their demands for an extremity to mandatory overtime and extended on-call hours, the national refused to instrumentality onslaught enactment and worked systematically down the scenes with infirmary absorption to unit done a declaration that resolved nary of the nurses’ issues.
Throughout the declaration fight, the MNA-UMPNC told nurses to spot assurance successful the UM Board of Regents and the Democratic Party to code their intolerable moving conditions, alternatively of relying connected their ain autarkic spot successful wide enactment and the enactment of wellness attraction workers, autoworkers and different workers crossed Michigan, the US and internationally to combat for their interests.
The WSWS Health Care Newsletter explained the request for nurses and different Michigan Medicine workers to found a rank-and-file committee to instrumentality the declaration negotiations retired of the hands of the MNA-UMPNC bureaucrats and enactment the workers successful control, and nexus up their conflict with the struggles of wellness attraction workers facing the aforesaid problems each implicit the state and successful different countries.
Now, it is wide that Michigan Medicine absorption and the Board of Regents were preoccupied with moving retired their strategy for expanding the hospital, expanding its marketplace stock and driving up its fiscal performance.
The merger of the 2 infirmary systems successful Michigan is portion of the process of consolidation of the wellness attraction services manufacture into ample enterprises worthy tens of billions of dollars. With the summation of implicit 700 beds from Sparrow successful mid-Michigan to its astir 1,200 beds successful the southeast region, Michigan Medicine volition turn and determination person to becoming the largest wellness attraction strategy successful the state. It is expected that the combined gross of the 2 merged organizations volition scope $7 cardinal annually.
With plans to walk different $1 cardinal connected a caller 12-story, 264-bed infirmary adjacent to its existing infirmary successful Ann Arbor, Michigan Medicine is poised to overtake the precocious renamed Corewell Health, a merger of Spectrum Health successful Grand Rapids with Southfield-based Beaumont Health that took spot past February, arsenic the largest wellness attraction strategy successful the state.
As 1 idiosyncratic told the World Socialist Web Site, “Michigan Medicine is merging with Sparrow, but they accidental determination is ‘no money’ for raises. This was a determination against Beaumont, since they bought Spectrum.”
The idiosyncratic explained that the enlargement of the Ann Arbor wellness attraction strategy has been made imaginable done intensified exploitation of its workers. “Michigan Medicine is simply a governmental powerhouse that doesn’t wage its employees. I could person a pension. They speech astir $2 raises.”
He added, “Health attraction is utilized to marque wealth for the institution. For newer employees they brought the bottommost up, but continued mandatory overtime with nurses. Then we get thousands of propaganda emails by the administration.”
The idiosyncratic shared an email that was sent to the Michigan Medicine staff, which said that talks for the instauration of a statewide wellness strategy began successful mid-2021, which means that the merger negotiations were taking spot passim the nurses’ declaration struggle.
The blocking of onslaught enactment by the nurses and consequent sellout statement pushed done by the MNA-UMPNC was a captious origin successful the University of Michigan’s quality to proceed with strategical plans that were concealed from the nurses and employees.
It is highly improbable that the MNA—which represents nurses astatine some Sparrow Health and Michigan Medicine—was unaware of the negotiations for a merger during the summertime and fall, portion it was isolating and selling retired the Michigan Medicine nurses.
Michigan Medicine began its narration with Sparrow Health successful 2019 by collaborating successful offering pediatric services. Since then, Sparrow Health has been described successful the concern property arsenic “struggling.” Last September, it laid disconnected hundreds of employees aft it recorded a $90 cardinal shortage successful the archetypal fractional of 2022.
This volition beryllium the 2nd acquisition of different infirmary by Michigan Medicine, an ostensibly nationalist and not-for-profit wellness attraction system, successful the past 2 decades. When the Ann Arbor infirmary was called UM Health System, successful 2009, it signed an affiliation statement with Metro Health Corp. successful Wyoming adjacent Grand Rapids. In 2016, Metro Health merged with Michigan Medicine and was renamed University of Michigan Health-West, with a 208-bed infirmary and 30 ambulatory and outpatient centers successful occidental Michigan.
English (US)