Fatima, St. Joseph Hospital Pension Crisis: Retirees Speak Out

SMITHFIELD, RI — Caroll Short, of Smithfield, worked as an Emergency Room radiographer for about 33 years. She worked first at St. Joseph's Hospital and then spent the last 13 years at Our Lady of Fatima until she was injured and forced into retirement. She can't find another job due to disability, and she was relying on her pension to pay a substantial part of her living expenses. But now, she's not sure what will happen to her now that the Fatima and St. Joe's Hospital pensions are in receivership.

The news about the pension crisis broke in August. Fatima and its sister hospital, Roger Williams Medical Center, were both taken over by Prospect Medical Holdings, a for-profit company based in California. Under the terms of the sale, Prospect made a one-time payment to the retirement fund, which then was effectively cut loose. Though the employees had had a defined benefit plan, the employer was no longer required to make contributions.

Short and others impacted by the crisis found out about their predicament through the news. Her 88-year-old mother, also a former hospital employee, called her last August and said she wasn't sure she had heard correctly. But she thought the newscaster had said the pensions were insolvent.

Short said her mother, who lives in Johnston, usually doesn't make a mistake. Initially, she thought this time, her mother must have misunderstood.

But then, the attorneys were saying 40 percent or more of people's pensions would have to be cut, she said.

"It's going t0 hurt me," she said. "But it's going to hurt a lot of other people even more. They were depending on that money for necessities. Close to 50 percent of them are up in years." And they're not in good health, she said. Others have had financial setbacks. One 55-year-old woman was laid off, needed the pension money to get by, and then her husband died. But the part that upsets Short the most is this: people were making the decision as late as this summer to retire, while thinking their pension was there. They wouldn't have retired, if they'd known the truth.

"It was a big secret until it went bust on the news," she said. She figures some people should be held accountable.

"It's shameful," she said.

As for Short, the cut to her pension represents the loss of about half of her retirement savings, she said.

Patch is interviewing several of the people impacted by the pension crisis and will have another story about the steps being taken to help them.

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