BELLINGHAM, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – Hospitalists at PeaceHealth hospitals in our area have voted to unionize.
Clinicians working at PeaceHealth’s Bellingham and Sedro-Woolley locations are now a part of the Union for American Physicians and Doctors (UAPD). Participants in the union are jointly employed by Sound Physicians, a for-profit company that contracts and jointly employs with hospitals in the Pacific Northwest. UAPD coordinator Joe Crane voiced concerns over Sound’s practices when it came to patient care.
“This is a for-profit endeavor that is coming in to make money off of our sick family members,” he said. “However they want to spin it, their business model is to make money off of us being sick.”
A doctor at St. Joseph Medical Center was fired after he had raised concerns over safety in 2020 shortly after the pandemic hit. Crane believes it is a terrifying standard that a physician could lose their job for speaking up.
“We’re not just sitting here fighting for a cost-of-living adjustment. We’re fighting for issues that are literally life and death for their own families,” Crane said. He added the lack of autonomy that hospitalists have over when patients are discharged and what care they provide is a driving factor in the decision to unionize.
According to Crane, this is the first joint-employment at a hospital to unionize in the country. He hopes that more will follow.
