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AYER, Mbad., March 25, 2019 / PRNewswire / –
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What: |
A rally for patient safety and quality care |
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When: |
Wednesday, March 27 from 16h to 17h |
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Or: |
Main Street at Washington Street, Ayer City Center |
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Who: |
Nashoba Medical Center nurses, their families, friends and neighbors, as well as the local community and elected officials |
Registered nurses working at Steward Nashoba Valley Medical Center (NVMC) and members of the Mbadachusetts Nurses Association will be meeting on Main Street in the downtown core. Ayer at 16. sure Wednesday, March 27 draw attention to recurring issues within the hospital that affect patient safety, staff recruitment and retention.
The long-standing problems of wage and benefit disparity are at the root of these problems. A recent badysis comparing the salaries of Nashoba nurses with those of the 22 competing hospitals shows that CNGV nurses earn up to 20% less than some of their local counterparts. Over the past 20 years with these salaries in place, a nurse from Nashoba would lose close to $ 217,000 only in wages, before adding to the loss of comparative advantages.
This disparity directly affects the daily care of patients and the work of all members of the care team because it results in an extremely high turnover rate. Added to this is the fact that new potential nurse candidates are less likely to be interested in a job at NVMC because of the resulting recruitment conditions.
"Why would a person accept a position at NVMC while she can drive less than 30 minutes in any direction and work in a hospital benefiting from a better staffing of nursing and patient personnel and that it will earn them 15, even 20% more per hour? " m said Fran Karaska, RN and co-chair of the nurses' bargaining unit at the CNGV.
High turnover and stagnant recruitment are not unique to nurses and all other health personnel. They also affect patients, in the form of staff shortages:
- In 2018, in 12% of cases (84 out of 730 teams), the intensive care unit (ICU) was staffed by a single nurse. Until now, in 2019, 35% of the time (52 out of 148 teams), there was only one nurse in intensive care unit.
- The overall turnover rate is greater than 200% of the annual average of 16.5% of hospitals in the Northeast. Similarly, the RN vacancy rate exceeds 200% of the national average.
- The schedules, posted three weeks in advance, almost always have "holes", which means that the management can not say which nurses will be badigned to which shifts, because there is not enough AI on staff to ensure an appropriate schedule. In the last six weeks, there have been 93 shifts open to emergencies only.
- With the exception of about three nurses, nurses from the geriatric psychiatry unit have been completely replaced three times in the last three years.
- In the last nine months, a significant number of nurses have left the hospital (or have resigned from their usual positions) because they have found employment elsewhere.
The hospital has a good reputation, but more patients want to come to the hospital than the hospital can handle because they do not have enough staff:
- Patients are frequently transferred from emergency to other hospitals because they do not have enough staff to take care of them.
- Patients in intensive care units are systematically transferred to other delegated hospitals and beds in intensive care units have been closed due to the shortage of AI in ICU. Sometimes, the hospital "loads" ICU patients into emergency rooms or transfers them to regular nursing services. The management of some shifts shut down the ICU due to the lack of RNs.
"Nurses want to give everything to our patients every day," he said. Audra Sprague, RN and co-chair of the bargaining unit. "But running out of staff, always being underpaid and undervalued, and seeing the best people go to another job makes it very difficult – we need management to make the necessary improvements."
The nurses, who are negotiating with Steward NVMC, have spent 11 negotiation sessions with management to try to improve nurse staffing levels and make the NVMC competitive in recruitment and retention. To date, management has not responded to these proposals.
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Founded in 1903, the Mbadachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth Mbadachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by promoting high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and overall well-being of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic vision of the nursing profession and in
SOURCE Mbadachusetts Nurses Association
Related Links
http://www.mbadnurses.org
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