Vince Coglianese
The Daily Caller
7/18/2012
After the collapse of 17-month-long union negotiations on July 3, unionized health-care workers walked out of five nursing home facilities in Connecticut, but not before placing some elderly patients in dire medical risk through acts of sabotage, according to the company that owns and operates the facilities.
“In the hours leading up to the strike by the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199 SEIU (the Union) against five HealthBridge Management Health Care Centers in Connecticut, Union members engaged in multiple illegal and dangerous acts against Center residents,” reads a statement released by HealthBridge on Tuesday afternoon.
According to police reports obtained by The Daily Caller and reported Monday by the RedState blog, HealthBridge Management Health Care Centers alleged that union employees in at least three of its facilities intentionally mixed up or removed patient name plates, photos, medical bracelets and dietary advisories as they began their strike. Additionally, the police reports include allegations of both vandalism and larceny.
A July 3 police report from the Danbury Health Care Center in Danbury, Conn., states that “between the hours of 2300 [11:00 pm] on 7/2/12 and 0700 [7:00 am] today, 7/3/12, there were several incidents that directly affected and potentially could have negatively impacted patient care.”
“The incidents ranged from clean linens being thrown on the floor to more serious incidents whereby patients’ identification wrist bands were removed as well as patient identifiers on room doors and wheelchairs.”
“There are no suspects,” the report continues, but “the persons involved are presumed to be employees who are part of a protest taking place outside outside against the Danbury Health Care Center.”…
…HealthBridge’s Tuesday statement claims that when it reached out to the office of state Attorney General George Jepsen, a Democrat, they were turned away and told to speak with local law enforcement.
Jepsen’s longstanding relationship with SEIU has had a compromising effect on his discretion in the case.
On Monday and Tuesday, Jepsen joined the SEIU picket lines outside each of the five nursing homes operated by HealthBridge, to show “support for striking health care workers … [who] began strikes on July 3 over unfair labor practices after the company ended negotiations,” according to a media advisory on Jepsen’s official website…
…Connecticut Gov. Dannell Malloy, a Democrat, also walked the picket line with SEIU workers last week and criticized HealthBridge’s failure to reach an agreement with the union. “They’re trying to break the union, and we don’t want that to happen,” he told the striking workers…
The complete article is at The Daily Caller.
