The Desert Healthcare District must put patients over profits
With Tenet Healthcare’s 30-year operating lease at Desert Regional Medical Center expiring in 2027, the Desert Healthcare District will have a historic opportunity to define the health and well-being of Coachella Valley’s communities for generations to come.
Desert Regional is one of California’s most lucrative hospitals – just since 2010, Tenet has made $1 billion in net income profit at Desert Regional alone– so it is not surprising that company executives are currently pushing to renew the lease and guarantee its sale. A recent editorial endorses the plan and suggests that, without Tenet, we could simply lose our hospital. But this is a false narrative. What is happening right now is that Tenet is refusing to release data that would enable the District to invite other operators to submit bids. This is like a renter refusing the landlord access to a property that is up for sale, saying: “You cannot come in or show it to other prospective buyers—but you must sell to me.”
In my 15 years as a registered nurse at Desert Regional, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when a hospital is run as a business designed to maximize profits for shareholders: chronic understaffing, dangerous nurse-to-patient ratios, supply shortages, broken equipment, leaking ceilings, and even vermin.
When greed is the motive, we also lose critical services. That’s why Tenet closed our psychiatric unit in 2005: It was among the precious few in Coachella Valley, but it wasn’t profitable enough—they publicly said that they needed the space to add more surgical beds but then told investors that this was part of a new profit maximizing strategy – never mind that the company had already recovered what it paid for the lease and was generating healthy annual returns at Desert Regional.
Then two years ago, as the pandemic waned and patients started coming back to take care of long-postponed appointments and treatment, CEO Saum Sutaria said that it cost too much “to staff up to take care of… that [rising patient] volume” at Tenet hospitals. So he was putting off hiring more nurses until it could be done “on a profitable basis.”
That wasn’t for lack of funds, of course: Between 2020 and 2022, Tenet got nearly $1.3 billion in government grants – free taxpayer money – through a COVID-relief fund for healthcare providers, helping the company secure record-breaking profits every year since 2020.
But even before that COVID windfall, Tenet’s austerity at our hospital had already helped squeeze a $100 million profit from Desert Regional in 2018 alone. Maybe that’s why Medicare penalized Desert for excessive HAC (Hospital-Acquired Conditions) cases in 2018, 2019 and 2022; why state health inspectors have found dozens of violations since 2015; and why we consistently get a 2-star rating (out of 5 possible) on the Hospital Compare website.
Tenet’s way of running Desert Regional is nothing out of the ordinary for a for-profit business. When the company’s former CEO Ron Rittenmeyer explained in 2019 why he was laying off thousands of nonmedical staff and sending their jobs overseas, he described corporate philosophy: “We’re in the business to make a profit—No. 1. That’s our job, so we’re always going to be looking to reduce our costs. That’s just the facts.”
Let me be clear: That isn’t what brought me, my fellow nurses and medical staff to Desert Regional. The cuts to staff, equipment and supplies required to maximize profits inevitably hurt patient care and the community's health. We are here to save lives, alleviate suffering and promote healing. This must be our guiding principle going forward. Our elected representatives on the District board of directors can choose from a few different paths, but the path they choose must reflect a commitment to our patients and families above corporate greed.
Cyd Greenhorn is a registered nurse at Desert Regional and can be reached at Stitchnmikey@aim.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: The Desert Healthcare District must put patients over profits
