Patients Speak Out For Nurses Sacred Heart Nurses Say Demands Are About More Than Pocketbooks
Nurses at Sacred Heart Medical Center have argued that their demands in recent contract negotiations are about more than pocketbooks. They are also about patients.
Valerie Smith agrees.
Smith voiced her concerns about being a patient at the hospital in front of more than 500 nurses and their supporters rallying in Cowley Park on Sunday afternoon.
“I did notice a difference,” Smith said of the treatment she received last month and the treatment she had received in years past. The biggest difference: the lack of registered nurses to care for patients.
She said she had bedsores that went unnoticed. She had to have friends help her with things that should have been done by nurses, and she was “jerked” out of bed by a nurses’ aide, she said.
When she reported the aide to a nurse, he came back and threatened her, Smith said.
On top of it all, the nurses seemed depressed.
“No patient needs to watch a depressed nurse,” said Smith. “None of this is the nurses’ fault. There are just not enough of them.”
Smith was one of several patients who spoke Sunday in support of nurses in their negotiations with Sacred Heart’s management. Talks broke down last Tuesday.
The hospital’s more than 1,100 registered nurses have worked since Dec. 31 without a contract. They soundly rejected a management offer earlier this month.
Nurses want a smaller nurse-to-patient ratio, better wages and changes in a practice under which nurses are on call during their time off. They also want all of Sacred Heart’s nurses to join the Washington State Nurses Association, a union and professional organization.
“Nurses are being stretched past the limits of safety,” said Vicki Benson, a Sacred Heart nurse.
Benson described a shift when several patients were in danger but no one informed her. Her point: The hospital doesn’t have enough registered nurses to keep good tabs on patients.
“Dangerous situations will become more frequent,” she said.
The Sunday rally was a prelude to informational picketing the nurses will stage beginning today from 7:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
On Tuesday, an informational picket will run from 7:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.; 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in front of the hospital.
Nurses will continue to work and will staff the pickets on their own time. Should they chose to actually strike, they must give Sacred Heart 10 days’ notice.
Patients weren’t the only ones offering support to the nurses. In a show of union solidarity, a postal carriers’ union, a firefighters’ union, the Washington Education Association and other union representatives pledged their support. There were also nurses from Seattle, Bellingham, Yakima and other parts of the state as well as Idaho.
“This struggle is going on all over the country. By doing this you’re letting people know in other parts of the country that nurses won’t put up with it,” said George Holmes, with the Service Employees International Union. “You wont’ be alone on the picket lines - we’ll be out there with you.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: STATUS Talks broke down last Tuesday.