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Community Hearing on the Proposed Essentia-Marshield Merger

Both of the large hospitals based in Duluth – Essentia Health, and St. Luke’s – have announced they intend to merge with other regional companies.  St. Luke’s is looking to become a junior partner in Aspirus, a Wausau, Wisconsin based company.  And Essentia is looking to merge with Wisconsin’s Marshfield Clinic system.  Before either merger can go through though, it has to be signed off on by the Minnesota Attorney General.  Towards that end, a series of public hearings on the mergers are being held, with the one in Duluth taking place on Oct. 25.  Here is a brief report on what happened at that hearing.

There were over two hundred people in attendance at the Duluth hearing, though Attorney General Keith Ellison himself was not among them.  The event began with presentations by the CEOs of St. Luke's, Aspirus, Essentia and Marshfield.  One telling moment was when the CEO of Aspirus failed to correctly announce the name of the CEO of St.  Luke’s, before he announced that he was going to give up trying.  Symbolic perhaps of how St. Luke’s is going to be a junior partner in its new proposed relationship with Aspirus.  The CEO’s of Essentia and Marshfield, however, insisted that theirs would be a marriage of equals, though the CEO of the new merge entity will be Essentia’s Dr. Herman.  All of the CEO’s remarks were the typical ‘this will be the greatest thing since sliced bread’ kind of pitches.  Lots of flowery words about how important patient care is, with nothing concrete about what these mergers will mean for workers, patients or the community in general. 

Next came the public comment period.  Folks who had signed up in advance were allotted 1 minute each, followed by a brief open mic for anyone who hadn’t gotten a chance to sign up. 

A slight majority of folks there spoke in favor of the mergers.  Of those who spoke in favor, the largest group identified themselves as managers or doctors from Essentia.  However, there were also speakers from the Chamber of Commerce, UMD as well as other local big businesses.  They mostly echoed the CEOs claims that such mergers are exciting and necessary steps towards improving patient care, and/or they spoke about how wonderful their experiences at Essentia and St. Luke’s has been. 

Critics of the merger were generally either everyday community members, patients or healthcare workers (there were contingents there from both United Steelworkers Local 9460 and the Minnesota Nurses Association).  Their remarks were as different from the pro-merger folks as night and day.  They described how bad their experiences have been as Essentia has grown into the huge leviathan it is today, the reduction in services that outlying communities have seen after Essentia took over their hospitals and clinics, and the dramatically increased workloads that workers are being made to do all while their wages are stagnant.  The unions stressed how little Essentia has communicated with them – answering none of their questions about whether facilities would be closed, workloads increased even more than they already have, and whether workers are going to be bounced between different worksites.  While a few folks spoke out against the St. Luke’s merger, the vast majority aimed their fire at Essentia. 

As far as elected officials - Mayor Larson spoke in favor of the St. Luke's merger, but said she was neutral on the Essentia one because she had unanswered concerns.  City Councilor Arik Forsman also spoke - praising St. Luke's and somehow making it all about the Building Trades.  His last sentence was said very softly, and it sounded like he said something like he would be happy to support the Essentia merger too if they got the unions on board.  State Senator Grant Hauschild was present, but didn't speak.

One of the things that was visually striking was the stark contract in the types of clothes that the two sides wore.  Almost everyone who spoke in favor of the mergers were dressed just like the CEOs.  There were so many suits worn that if you didn’t look closely, you might have mistaken the gathering as a penguin exhibit at the zoo!  While the folks who spoke against were dressed in everyday casual wear.  The class divide was very clear!

What will come out of the hearing is hard to say.  One thing that is certain is that the healthcare companies took it very seriously, clearly having mobilized a lot of people.  This isn’t surprising given that earlier this year the planned merger between Fairview and Sanford Health was blocked after nurses turned out in force to speak out at the Attorney General’s hearings on that proposed merger.

If you would like to submit written comments to the Attorney General you can do so online at this link:  https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Health-Care/Transactions/Input.asp

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