Bernie Sanders at Hahnemann: ‘Keep this hospital open’

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is using the impending closure of Hahnemann University Hospital as a case in point for his plan for Medicare for All, urging state and local lawmakers to keep the 495-bed facility open.

At a rally Monday afternoon outside the hospital at Broad and Vine streets, the Vermont senator, who calls himself a democratic socialist, thanked all the workers and the trade union movement.

“This is not a complicated issue, it’s a matter of getting our priorities right,” Sanders said, adding that patient care is more important than profit for major corporations.

Sanders said his message is simple: “Keep this hospital open.”

“As all of you know, the possible closing of Hahnemann has nothing to do with health care, it has everything to do with greed,” Sanders said.

“Enough is enough,” he said in a short speech before an enthusiastic, sign-waving crowd unofficially estimated in the hundreds. Some watched from the upper windows of the venerable hospital building.

Sanders also weighed in on the hospital’s closure earlier this month, blaming it on corporate greed. He penned an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer with Councilwoman-at-large Helen Gym that said of Joel Freedman, CEO and president of the parent company of Hahnemann’s owner, “By separating the health-care business from the real estate, Freedman has positioned himself to sell off the land for a fortune while allowing the hospital itself to wither away.”

Sanders said he will introduce legislation in the Senate calling for a $20 billion emergency trust fund to help states and local governments purchase hospitals in financial distress.

Leadership at Hahnemann announced its closure at the end of June, the result of a $300 million operating deficit.

As proposed by Sanders and embraced by others in the 2020 Democratic presidential field, Medicare for All would be a single national health insurance program. As Medicare currently covers people over 65, Medicare for All would replace private health insurance, with the federal government setting rates for services, medications, medical equipment, among other things.

Meanwhile, local leaders are asking for help from Congress to ensure that Hahnemann patients’ medical needs will continue to be met.

On Monday, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf pledged $15 million to help fill coverage gaps for any new medical operator that planned to open at the Hahnemann site. In a statement, Kenney and Wolf acknowledged that the hospital is not in a financial position to stay open, but they said it would be wrong to put taxpayer money toward bailing out Hahnemann’s owner and Joel Freedman, the CEO and president of its parent company, American Academic Health System, for what they called “irresponsible ownership.”

Kenney and Wolf said they were “working with potential investors to find support for maintaining a level of medical services in the community served by Hahnemann,” and called on Congress and the federal government to match their investment. They also said they hoped the funding commitment would “incentivize a long-term solution to emerge to serve the community at this site.”

When asked if there was a plan for a new operator in place, Kenney spokeswoman Deanna Gamble said not necessarily, but that the funding served as a “commitment from the city and state to put public funds to continuing operations if there was a viable option on the table.”

As people gathered for the Sanders rally, Shanna Hobson said she has been an ER nurse at Hahnemann for six years. She said the staff hasn’t heard word of when the emergency room will stop accepting patients, though the state Health Department confirmed it will be Wednesday. She hopes Sanders shining a light on the issue that will push local officials to save the hospital.

Shanna Hobson has been an ER nurse at Hahnemann for 6 years. Said staff hasn’t heard word of when the ER will stop accepting patients, though the PA health dept confirmed it will be Wed. Hopes Sanders shining a light on the issue will push local officials to save the hospital. pic.twitter.com/p2Rdte41Gl

— Nina Feldman (@ncannellf) July 15, 2019

Family medicine physician Janet Cruz said she’s not for Medicare for all per se, but that she hopes Sanders’ attention to Hahnemann will get people talking about health care costs overall.

Maureen May, president of the 8,500-member Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, kicked off the rally, thanking Wolf and Kenney for their $15 million commitment. In a statement issued before the rally, May urged Wolf to use the funds to bring a buyer to the table who will keep the 170-year-old hospital open.

Calling Freedman a coward, Susan Bowes, president of the hospital’s nurses association, said: “In a city with one of the highest poverty rates in the city, rising gun violence and the opioid epidemic, Hahnemann’s closure will cost lives.”

Councilwoman Gym got the crowd riled up with cheers of:  “Whose city? Our city! Whose hospital? Our hospital!” Gym said the closing of Hahnemann should not be treated as inevitable.

She said Hahnemann needs to stay open as a model for other hospitals in financial distress across the country — it will send a message to elected officials that they can’t just let corporations and Wall Street come in and take over. “This is our line in the sand,” Gym said.

Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner, a Democrat who served as a Sanders surrogate during his 2016 presidential campaign and represented him at a protest rally last week at Hahnemann, echoed Gym’s sentiment.

Hahnemann is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the nation, Turner said. If Hahnemann closes, she said, hospital workers may lose their pensions. “The other side may have more money, but baby, we got the people.”

Cancer patient and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children pediatric physician assistant Maria Garcia gets her chemo care at Hahnemann.

“It has been a complete package of focused, patient care. Unfortunately, this package is now in danger of being dismantled, and that is a disgrace,” Garcia said. She hopes to continue her care at Hahnemann in August.

In Wilmington Friday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross approved hospital attorneys’ request for interim financing during Philadelphia Academic Health’s Chapter 11 process, essentially giving Hahnemann’s owner permission to borrow money from investors MidCap Financial so Hahnemann can pay its bills and keep operations going during the shutdown process.

The real estate on which Hahnemann sits — in a desirable area north of City Hall — is not owned by Philadelphia Academic Health and is not part of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. Philadelphia Academic Health also owns St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, which is part of the bankruptcy filing and which the health system plans to sell.

Last week, attorney Mark Minuti had told the judge that the hospital would like to shut down its emergency department by Wednesday, July 17. He asked Gross to expedite a decision on that request, pending agreement from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the city and other relevant parties, which Minuti assured Gross he could get. The state Health Department, which has a cease-and-desist order in place and a temporary monitor at the hospital, confirmed Monday that the Emergency Department will stop accepting new patients on Wednesday, though emergency services will still be available to patients already in the hospital.

Gross still must approve the overall closure plan for the hospital, to which the city of Philadelphia, the state Health Department, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and Drexel University have objected. Hahnemann is the primary teaching hospital for Drexel’s College of Medicine.

The judge encouraged Hahnemann’s leadership to meet with creditors to come to an agreement before he reviewed the plan, which Gross is expected to do this Friday.

The judge is also expected to make a decision this week on the proposal put forward by Hahnemann, Drexel, and Tower Health to transfer Hahnemann’s roughly 570 medical residency slots to Tower’s six hospitals around Pennsylvania. Tower currently has just 118 Medicare-funded residency slots.

That transfer will also need approval from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare, as well as from the Accrediting Council for Graduate Medical Education, the body responsible for approving teaching hospital programs. Within that plan, residents would still be able to find their own placements elsewhere.

WHYY is the leading public media station serving the Philadelphia region, including Delaware, South Jersey and Pennsylvania. This story originally appeared on WHYY.org.