Something happens when corporate greed meets with patient care.

In April 2020, the world lived in fear of the Coronavirus that was killing millions of people. The pandemic was hard, it was scary and it slammed in to the world and indiscriminate deadly fist. Businesses closed, families remained locked indoors. Every day people died. Every day people got sick, and every cough brought with it the fear of death.

Hospitals and medical professionals were the things the world had to turn to. Emergency rooms filled, overflowing with the ill. Intensive Care Units were beyond maximum capacity. Every room of the hospital was utilized. Hospital staff were grossly overworked. Healthcare facilities and hospitals were all reaching out and doing everything they could to fight this new monster we named Covid-19.

All hospitals except one.

In the sleepy suburb of Wayne, Michigan, Beaumont Hospital turned its back on a community of 700,000 who needed them more than ever. In April 2020, just hours after news statements the hospital released assuring their community that they were not closing, they laid off thousands of employees, turned off the lights and barred the doors tightly.

I use the words corporate and greed because that is what I witnessed during my time employed at Beaumont Hospital. Let me introduce myself; my name is Jason, and I work for the not-for-profit company that is known for healthcare. But that's just a front, a facade. I have sat across the table from, what I consider, monsters in human form. Monsters because they seemed more interested in red ink and bottom lines that ended in their pockets.

In the middle of staff struggling through irrational policies it is interesting to remember that the former CEO received a reported 40 million dollar bonus when Beaumont merged with Corewell Health in the fall of 2020. Not bad for the head of an organization that claims to be "not for profit." I wonder how prominent the bottom lines are drawn in the pockets of the current CEO.

In the middle of a healthcare crisis and after paying the exorbitant salaries of their executive administration, they underpaid the staff while mandating overtime. They understaffed the floors while expecting one employee to do the work of four. They made that one nurses aid exceed the safe limit ratio of 8:1 and be responsible for a reported ratio of up to 24:1. Then they held them accountable for errors that wouldn't have occurred had there been more staff, more respect, more value placed on the employees that work every day. Yes, these policies impact the careers of staff who have dedicated fifteen, twenty, thirty years to caring for the medical needs of their neighbors.

As a chief union steward, I have shared negotiation and grievance tables with the corporate big wigs. I have battled them on safety issues. I have called them out publicly. I have challenged them and held them as accountable as I possibly could. But I have a more important question for Beaumont.

Do they know the real-world impact their decisions have on the lives of the patients who entrust Beaumont with their lives?

If a corporation turned their backs, locked their doors and refused to care for nearly on million people, how can they truly show they care for even one patient?

This story is about one patient. One who blames Beaumont for her death.