It was a sea of yellow outside my daughter’s hospital room on St. Patrick’s Day this year as Providence’s nurses held an informational picket to raise awareness of staffing and pay issues. Herald readers may have read that day’s story, or seen the picket in person. If so, a friendly nurse likely handed you a sheet that said “Nurses Need a Voice” without much else on it and talked to you about something called Safe Staffing and better pay and health benefits.
Regardless of my personal views on unions, I didn’t pay this much mind since I don’t have any sort of benefits and a registered nurse is likely worth about three of me. And with Providence’s excellent reputation for quality care, patient pay flexibility and charitable work, how bad could it be to work for them? I think most people probably did what I did: ignore the first thing we didn’t know much about and recall how nice our new hospital is. I got a crash course in Safe Staffing a few nights later.
I knew something was off after the nurse in charge took care of my daughter (Hint: that’s not supposed to happen). Then a familiar face from day shift walks in the door to take over. Keep in mind these nurses work 12-hour shifts up to 6 days in a row. This nurse, in addition to working 20 hours of her 24-hour day, was loaded with other patients to the point where we could barely find her when we needed her. My wife and I addressed our daughter’s problems, moved and touched things we shouldn’t have, and made things work while our sleepy nurse took care of patients on the other side of the wing.
Did I mention we’re in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit?
This is a picture of what Safe Staffing isn’t: too many people, not enough nurses. And worried as I am about my child, I worry even more for the babies in worse shape than mine is. The ones born with severe defects, the babies born at 24 weeks where survival rates are low and problems are rampant, the babies who don’t have two other adults in the room to try and pick up the slack. Let’s go over a little more of what Safe Staffing isn’t.
Staff Staffing isn’t carting a very vulnerable child from room to room because of “staffing.”
Safe Staffing isn’t keeping nurses so busy that visitors and parents are left waiting to get inside with no “huck” (the person who watches the heart monitors and sometimes grabs the door) in sight.
Safe Staffing isn’t keeping a child in a room for one day and then moving rooms due, again, to “staffing.”
I have seen the nurses here do some incredible things with their limited staffing resources. But as a father, I am deeply concerned for the safety of the patients in Providence’s hospitals. What the nurses here want isn’t just another pay raise. What they are asking for is something that is common at other area hospitals: the ability to say “This staffing situation is unsafe and I will not provide my best care in this situation.” As of right now, nurses get their assignments with no input. Which sounds OK until you consider that these frontline nurses probably have a much better sense of what needs to be done verses someone in an office drawing up staffing arrangements from a formula and a chart with names and blood pressures on it.
The kicker? If something happens while these nurses are on duty with their unsafe assignments, they are ultimately liable.
The security guards here call this campus The Country Club because it’s slower, easier and less stressful than the hospital on Colby. I recall when my Grandpa was hospitalized at the Colby campus and each overworked nurse tried to give him sugar despite his diabetes. If nurses at Colby are any worse off than they are here, I can’t imagine what else gets overlooked.
Providence needs to step up to the table and bargain with these nurses. They’d love a raise just like anyone else, but the real reason our nurses are speaking up is because our community’s most vulnerable members are at serious risk. A simple change in nurse’s rights or a few new hires could make a world of difference. And this community needs to step up and stand with the heroes who save lives every day. Nobody wants another Death Valley.
Jake Nicholls is studying journalism at Everett Community College.
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