Labor & Employment Law

Washington Hospital Center Nurses Strike, Rally for Better Patient Care

By James Parks

Nurses at Washington Hospital Center walked out this morning on a one-day strike.

Nurses at Washington Hospital Center walked out this morning for a one-day strike to protest management?s refusal to address their concerns about safe patient care, management?s attempt to erode nursing standards, and management?s unfair labor practices.

 The 1,650 registered nurses, members of National Nurses United (NNU), say the policies of the hospital?s owner MedStar Health have eroded patient care conditions and has prompted an exodus of hundreds of experienced RNs from the hospital.

?We just want to do the nursing,” said one RN, “but until all the units are fully staffed, we can’t do our jobs properly.”

We have to be sharp; we save lives, while MedStar  sits on billions of dollars.

The nurses also object to attempts to cut nurses? pay and benefits, and charge that the company violated federal labor law in implementing cuts in workplace and economic standards. 

Speaking to a noontime rally at the hospital, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the nurses their struggle for better patient care is similar to the struggles of public employees in the Midwest to keep their bargaining rights.

Your strike today is powerful.  It?s important to Washington, and it?s important to everybody who seeks health care in America, and everyone who earns a paycheck.

It?s like what our brothers and sisters are doing across the Midwest and in cities and towns nationwide. They?re standing up to the corporate CEO agenda that?s bent on beating down America, on trampling on our middle class and on turning us into a nation of haves and have-nots.

As an example of the hospital?s inattention to patient care, the nurses allege that about  two weeks ago, only two nurses were scheduled to work in labor and delivery. That night, they say, each nurse carried a patient load of six women who were delivering babies. That means each nurse cared for 12 patients. Luckily, there were no emergencies.

A 12-year veteran nurse puts it this way:

They?re trying to run the hospital like a corporation? Patients need to make sure that there is enough staff so that they get the care that they deserve, so that they can get discharged at an adequate time, and then someone else who?s sicker can come into the hospital.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 04, 2011 (boomark / email).