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Last April, people across America walked out of quarantine every night to encourage healthcare workers fighting to save lives during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Sixteen months later, nurses in the United States are staging strikes and picketing amid allegations of deteriorating working conditions and serious understaffing issues.
“Most of us felt like we were going from hero to zero quickly,” said Dominique Muldoon, a nurse for over 20 years at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts.
For more than four months, more than 700 nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital, owned by Tenet Healthcare, have been on strike, the second longest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts history. The hospital recruited replacement workers throughout the strike and spent over $ 30,000 a day on police coverage during the strike.
Muldoon, co-chair of the local bargaining unit, said understaffing worsened during the pandemic, with more staff cuts and time off, while nurses worked during scheduled breaks and shifts to try to meet the demand for patient care.
“Nurses would drive home at night in their cars crying,” Muldoon said. “You will end up staying late or working on your break trying to cope with the workload, but eventually you will get so frustrated because you will end up trying to overcompensate and not be able to keep up. “
Even through the coronavirus outbreaks, Muldoon claimed understaffing and cutbacks were the “new normal” at the hospital, despite nurses going out of their way during an emergency to care for patients.
“We’ve been doing our job long enough to know what standard we should need for patients,” she said.
Marlena Pellegrino, a nurse at Saint Vincent Hospital, said nurses and the union had tried to negotiate with the hospital administration to adopt safe staff ratios since before the pandemic, but their concerns have been with several. times discarded.
“Respect for our profession was not easy with this employer and it has lasted for a long time. I think the pandemic has put the spotlight on this. We have been through some very tumultuous times where our employer could have stepped in to help us instead of being a hindrance in the way we try to care for our patients, ”said Pellegrino. “When there aren’t enough bedside nurses, bad things can happen to patients, so we had to take that step until they were resolved.
Tenet Healthcare did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In Chicago, about 300 nurses at Community First Medical Center staged a one-day strike on July 26 against hospital failures during the pandemic and negotiations for new contracts.
Kathy Haff, an emergency nurse at Community First Medical Center for 29 years, explained that the hospital has lost a significant number of nurses on staff during the pandemic, including three nurses who died from the virus, and now nurses are working severely understaffed and with equipment to accomplish their tasks.
“They don’t like us. They claim it, but they don’t. They take advantage of us left and right, ”Haff said. “We mainly work with half the staff. They don’t care if we run out. They keep charging and criticizing us if you don’t move fast enough. There is no appreciation. All of those “health hero” signs were garbage. We didn’t believe it at all. We’re like, yeah whatever. We are like health suckers because they did not protect us.
Community First Medical Center has denied staffing issues. “Community First has policies and protocols to assess daily volumes and acuity by department by each shift or more frequently as needed,” the hospital’s interim CEO said in a statement.
About 1,400 nurses from USC Keck Hospital and USC Norris Cancer Hospital in Los Angeles staged a two-day strike on July 13 and 14 over staffing and patient safety concerns.
Thousands of nurses represented by National Nurses United in hospitals in California and Texas held a day of action on July 21 to call attention to workplace issues highlighted by the pandemic.
Juan Anchondo, a nurse for nearly 18 years at Las Palmas Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, explained that staffing issues at his hospital worsened throughout the pandemic as nearby hospitals attracted workers with bonuses and better wages, and are supporting federal government nurses The Emergency Management Agency (Fema) left several months ago after helping with Covid-19 outbreaks in the region.
“People don’t take breaks,” Anchondo said. “One of the things we try to negotiate is a nurse on relief break, so nurses can properly decompress and take a break without interruption. “
Kimberly Smith, a 12-year intensive care nurse at Corpus Christi Medical Center in Texas, said dangerous staffing was a dominant issue in negotiations for new union contracts, but these issues important to nurses were dropped in the profit profit and public relations. campaigns claiming nurses are heroes for working on the front lines during the pandemic; and empty thank you events where nurses were given free hot dogs.
“I just want to be safe at work. I don’t need a hot dog. You tell me I’m a hero and how wonderful I am. It is enough to secure the working conditions. That’s all nurses want. We want to feel able to provide the best care possible and have enough resources to do it, ”said Smith, who added that nurses regularly skip breaks because there are no staff to take them up. “Even before the pandemic, the staffing was not that bad. It has been a horrible year. Nurses have died, are leaving the profession, are retiring.
A spokesperson for Corpus Christi Medical Center denied staffing shortages at the hospital. “Our goal since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has been to protect our clinicians and frontline caregivers so that they can continue to care for our patients and our communities,” they said. “We have been working to secure the PPE, supplies and personnel resources necessary to combat this pandemic.”
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