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YOUNGSTOWN -- Nurses at Northside Regional Medical Center should meet sometime next week to vote on a tentative agreement with Steward Health Care, according to a top union official.
Laurie Hornberger, president of the Youngstown General Duty Nurses Association, said Friday that a meeting date remains to be confirmed for the "mass union meeting."
The sides reached the tentative agreement Thursday night.
"At this point, there is really nothing I can say … until I have the members vote next week," Hornberger said.
The union was to negotiate severance packages with Steward at the end of August into early this month after the Boston-based health care provider announced Aug. 15 it would be closing the facility on Gypsy Lane on Sept. 20 due to it being under utilized.
Union officials said Aug. 16 outside the facility that the goal of the negotiations was to make sure members received severance packages large enough to give them adequate time to find jobs with comparable pay elsewhere in the region.
The association represents 188 registered nurses.
Steward did not provide a comment on the tentative agreement.
The hospital will stop taking ambulances and admissions in the emergency department Sept. 17 and by Sept. 19, Northside intends to transfer or discharge any remaining patients, according to a letter posted to Northside's website.
Patients are expected to be transferred to Trumbull Regional Medical Center, owned by Steward, and other local hospitals.
Employees will be paid through Oct. 14, according to the company.
Two buildings on the property that house six private practices that lease space from the company will remain open. Because the offices are private practices, the employment of the physicians and their support staff will not be affected by the closure of the rest of the facility.
The rest of the facility, meanwhile, has been proposed by U.S. Rep. Timothy J. Ryan to be used to provide services for local veterans, not as a clinic, but as potentially working with Youngstown-based America Makes to make prosthetics for injured veterans or where veterans can get help with housing and other supportive services.
Ryan, D-Howland, sent a letter to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie in August. A spokesman for the congressman said Friday he "is continuing to exhaust any and every opportunity to ensure that the Northside facility continues to serve members of our community, whether that is through the VA health system or any other means available."
rselak@tribtoday.com