Fairview hospital workers: "Patients first not bottom line"

Workers at Fairview hospital see there’s a link between Fairview, a hospital that is being investigated for aggressive debt collection, and Wells Fargo, a bank that aggressively forecloses on people’s homes.

That link is a Wells Fargo Vice President who serves on the Fairview board. The workers want that link cut.

Fairview Hospital workers rallied at the Wells Fargo Bank office closest to the Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center. They said that Wells Fargo’s behavior on home foreclosures and other negative actions made them unsuitable for the Fairview Board of Directors. The “bottom line first” mentality promoted by the banks has been detrimental to hospital attitude witness recent disclosures about the practices of Accretive Health in patient payment collection.

The group stated that, “In the wake of the Accretive hospital debt collection scandal, members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and the community argue that the hospital chain should make a clear statement that patients come before profits by replacing Campbell (Wells Fargo Vice President Jon Campbell) with patient representatives on its board.”

A strike vote on contract issues had been scheduled and that was later resolved with a negotiated settlement the day before the strike was scheduled.