CarePoint Employees, Politicians Rally to Preserve Jobs and Preservation of Patient Care  

As administrators continued prolonged consultations on the survival prospects of CarePoint Health’s network in Hudson County, employees Tuesday staged a public rally in support of the network.

Union members of District 1199J, which represents maintenance workers and technicians at Hoboken Medical Center; JNESO, bargaining agent for nurses in Hoboken; and the Committee of Interns & Residents, organized the demonstration.

Among those attending were area elected officials, including Hudson County Commissioner William O’Dea, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, along with Assemblymembers John Allen, Will Sampson and Jessica Ramirez.

The rally took place outside HUMC, which, together with Christ Hospital and Bayonne Hospital, fall under the domain of CarePoint, which has operated the three facilities since the onset of the COVID pandemic.

Since then, the network has run up an untold amount of bills owed vendors, made periodic late payments to its employees and has been negotiating – with help from the state Department of Health – with prospective affiliates and/or buyers for its Hudson facilities.

To date, the mid-West-based Insight Health appears to be the lead candidate for acquiring and/or running Christ Hospital and HUMC with Hudson Regional Hospital in Secaucus reportedly in line to take over Bayonne Medical Center, sources say.

Justin Drew, CarePoint chief of staff and vice president, says the network has been reeling from the cost of treating a patient mix of whom 65% are “either uninsured or underinsured,” along with caring for a high volume of homeless and undocumented individuals.

“We treat every patient that walks through our doors regardless of their ability to pay,” Drew said, “but this dedication has come with financial challenges that paint an unsurmountable picture without an infusion of aid.”

Although the receipt of a $10 million allocation in the 2023 state budget was “a step forward,” Drew said, “it is not nearly sufficient to sustain the level of care that Hudson County residents depend on.”

And while CarePoint has reached out to prospective partners, “many systems have either passed on the opportunity or not shown interest due to the high Medicare/Medicaid payor mix and chartity care provided, along with the fact that we don’t own the real estate under the hospital in which we operate,” Drew said.

With all that in mind, Local 1199J urged the public to “stand with us to keep our hospitals open and serving Hudson County for years to come.”

Employees at all three CarePoint facilities have received federal WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notices, which is required if a major employer is contemplating “mass layoffs.”

If that happened with CarePoint, it would mean “over 2,200 lost jobs” covering all three of its hospitals which “treat hundreds of patients daily,” Local 1199J said.

“In 2023, Christ, Hoboken and Bayonne hospitals (handled) over 12,000 inpatient procedures and over 70,000 emergency room visits. These patients would have to travel further and wait longer for care – or go without,” the union cautioned,

And, the union said, if the three hospitals shut, there’d be a spillover to other area hospitals where, typically, “patient volume goes up and (patients) do not get the care they deserve, resulting in higher patient death rates.”

And, the union said, closure of the CarePoint hospitals would have a local economic impact. “In 2022, nearly $200 million in salaries and wages were paid to workers. This is critical investment in Hudson County that helps keep our small businesses and local economy healthy.”

Meanwhile, in another CarePoint-related development, resident physicians at Bayonne Medical Center recently voted to join the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), the largest physicians’ union in the nation.

A statement issued by the CIR said that, “Amid reports of potential ownership changes for (Bayonne Medical Center) and other facilities owned by CarePoint, the doctors say joining the CIR will allow them to continue to advocate for themselves, their families and the future of Bayonne for their community.”