The editorials followed a Jan. 5 story in the Free Lance-Star titled “MWHC Executives reap Big Rewards,” which detailed the 2010 salaries of MWH’s top-paid executive an physicians. The first editorial, published on Jan. 27, questioned the need to publish the salaries, saying the newspaper’s desire “to fulfill some civic duty” unnecessarily vilified the workers.
The responding editorial, published Feb. 2, compared executive and physician salaries to the salaries of nurses at MWH. According to the author, nurses are never guaranteed their schedule, and when the hospital froze its pension plan, nurses were not offered a “cash out” option like executives were.
The author said the compensation disparity interferes with MWHS’ mission statement — “to improve the health status of all members in the community” — by spending money on salaries rather than care.
Read more on compensation:
–Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant Average Salaries Jump $25K Since 2001
–California State Senator Requests Audit Into Taxpayer-Funded Kern Health Systems
