A Wisconsin judge has lifted a restraining order preventing radiology workers from starting new jobs at a rival health system, according to reports published Monday.
Seven-hospital ThedaCare had been granted a temporary injunction after seven members of its interventional radiology and cardiovascular team announced they were leaving for new positions at Ascension Northeast Wisconsin. The Neenah-headquartered system had hoped the court would block the individuals from leaving until it could find replacements. But Judge Mark McGinnis of Outagamie County Circuit Court dismissed the order on Jan. 24, the New York Times reported.
“We know this situation has put the team members who decided to leave ThedaCare in the middle of a difficult situation,” Lynn Detterman, a senior VP of the hospital system’s South Region, said in a statement. “Our goal was always to create a short-term orderly transition, not to force team members to continue working at ThedaCare.”
The dispute occurred after Timothy Breister, a member of the 11-person interventional team, was recruited to join Ascension. He then informed ThedaCare coworkers about the “outstanding” employment offer, leading to their own conversations with the new employer. The seven employees gave ThedaCare a chance to counter, but it declined, believing the long-term expense was not worth the short-term cost, the Times reported.
Detterman had argued in an affidavit that, if the employees left, the hospital would need to divert patients to facilities miles away in Milwaukee or Madison. ThedaCare said it was forced to file a lawsuit in the hopes of retaining Level 2 trauma center status at its regional medical center in Neenah. Doing so requires being able to perform an interventional radiology procedure at any time of day, the suit said.
“Unfortunately, it is foreseeable that some patients may die because ThedaCare cannot timely treat them without interventional radiology and cardiovascular services,” Detterman claimed.
The court battle comes as hospitals and physician groups grapple with ongoing worker shortages. Joe Veenstra, a Wisconsin labor lawyer, said such a move by ThedaCare is unusual but may be a sign of the times.
“We’ve definitely entered an alternate universe,” he said. “Now we have managements incapable of controlling labor and asking courts to prevent the free market from happening. It’s just, we’re living in an upside-down world right now.”
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Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.