Sutter Health Provides Generous Pension Plan

I always wanted to take care of people, take care of patients. I like that. For 29 years, Betty Matsui cared for patients at Sutter Health-affiliated Novato Community Hospital. We were like a little family, and that was my second home. I just liked working with all my co-workers. I liked the way the managers and directors supported us. We were all very happy working together. We were a very good team. Nursing was also a calling for Gina Cacuyog. I like to be at the bedside and help patients. When you see them get well, it is very rewarding. Sometimes they come back to you and see you and say thank you. Gina spent nearly 37 years at Sutter Solano Medical Center, but says she never viewed her time there as work. If you love your job as much as I did, you won’t even notice the time that you’re at work and making a difference. Employees like Gina and Betty are the heart and soul of Sutter Health. They’re why our network can deliver high-quality, more affordable care to patients across Northern California. Employees are the ones that make health care happen. It isn’t the buildings, and it isn’t the equipment. It’s the employees that actually utilize those things. So we pay a lot of attention to health benefits, vacation benefits, paid time off benefits, wage scales, etc. We’re very competitive with what’s out there. Mark Dynes began working at Sutter Health in 1999. The benefits offered to employees are among the reasons he has stayed with Sutter for the past 12 years. We pay a fairly minimal cost for the benefits we receive, and of course, we are allowed to go to all the Sutter facilities and hospitals and see those physicians. We find their care to be extraordinary. Sutter Health is also committed to providing a generous pension to employees. The main thing that differentiates us from other organizations is the fact that we actually commit the funds, write the checks, put the money in the bank into these funds, so it’s there, it’s physically there. We, Sutter Health, cannot access those funds to build a new hospital, for example. The funds are there for the employees, for the long run. Like a lot of people, I thought those days were gone, where you would get a pension from your company. Personally, I was more focused on my own retirement accounts and IRA’s and items of that nature. So for me, it really was kind of a bonus, I didn’t really expect it, so knowing that it’s there is another extra piece. By working together to create a high-quality integrated and more affordable health care network, employees are actually investing in themselves and helping to ensure their own financially secure life upon retirement. We look at kind of a three-to-five-year plan as a family: the pension fund, the health care retirement account. Knowing those items will be there gives us another level of security, as we look forward. Receiving my Sutter Health pension plan has really helped my husband and I to have a comfortable life. I wouldn’t have been able to retire, if I didn’t have it. Every time I get that check, I feel like it’s a reward for a job well done, that I did for Sutter. I’m retired, but they continue to take care of me.