UMMS doesn’t care for caregivers
By John Reid
A patient-care technician for the University of Maryland Medical System must update his skills regularly to keep his job, but he hasn’t seen an update in his salary. Another UMMS technician must work at least two jobs to have any money left after paying basic living expenses. And a third caregiver, who has worked for the medical system for several years, can barely afford care for his family at the very hospital where he cares for others.
For UMMS caregivers, is this situation fair, decent or moral? As more Marylanders sign up to receive health care under the Affordable Care Act known as “Obamacare,” UMMS needs to offer decent wages and benefits to frontline caregivers so that hospitals can retain the best qualified staff. UMMS executives should be using taxpayer resources responsibly to ensure the highest quality patient care and good jobs for the frontline workers who provide that care.
These executives, however, are being the opposite of responsible. The system, which receives 59 percent of its funding from our tax dollars, has a more than $145 million debt resulting from a complex financial scheme related to interest rates that UMMS Chief Executive Officer Robert Chrencik executed when he was CFO. Despite questions from regulators and analysts about its debt, UMMS is steadily expanding, hiring high-paid executives and paying them big bonuses on top of their salaries….(click here to read more in the Baltimore Sun)
