The Rise of the Corporate-Catholic “Zombie Hospital”
A labor fight at Saint Vincent Hospital in Massachusetts reveals how massive health systems use weak religious affiliations as cover for toxic practices, from unions to reproductive health.
Courtesy of Amy Littlefield
Rain dots the sidewalk outside Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, as Pastor Moses Makor of Christ Vision Ministries ascends a plywood podium. Makor, dressed to preach, in black with a mustard-yellow collar, works at the hospital as a nurse. He and hundreds of co-workers have been out on strike since March 8 over nurse-to-patient ratios they say have led to unsafe conditions and an increase in patient bedsores and falls. It’s a Wednesday in late April, and the nurses surround the podium at the interfaith vigil, cupping battery-powered candles in the gray evening light as Makor quotes from the Epistle of James.