Local Healthcare Contractor Faces Scrutiny

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)VMT Long Term Care Management, a controversial D.C. contractor that operates multiple healthcare businesses, is facing serious scrutiny both online and on the street. VMTwatch.org went live Tuesday with a comprehensive look at the problems at VMT, which manages a D.C.-owned nursing home, runs a publicly funded home healthcare agency, and operates a troubled education center in the District. The launch of VMTwatch.org came on the same day that VMT was holding an open house at its education center in Washington’s Van Ness neighborhood. Outside the center, caregivers with the healthcare union 1199SEIU passed out leaflets noting that VMT’s LPN training program has the highest failure rate of any licensed program in the District. The D.C. Board of Nursing closed a previous VMT LPN program in 2003, and has placed the current program on conditional status and could shut it down. The caregivers of 1199SEIU have been working to raise healthcare standards at VMT since 2008, when workers at its home health agency voted to unite in 1199SEIU. In 2009, workers at the Washington Center for Aging Services voted to join 1199, and in February 2010, caregivers at the city-owned, VMT-run J.B. Johnson Nursing Center voted 165-0 to join the union. “In all three instances, VMT CEO Solanges Vivens has mounted aggressive anti-worker campaigns and refused to settle fair contracts with the caregivers after they voted to join the union,” says 1199SEIU spokesperson Maureen Higgins. “We're sponsoring VMTwatch.org to ensure that D.C. public officials and residents have the information they need to determine whether VMT is able to provide the high-level of care the District deserves.”