National Nurses United

NATIONAL N urses working for Community Health Systems (CHS), one of the largest for-profit hospital chains in the United States, challenged their employer on multiple fronts in May. On May 14, nurses issued a report detailing the failings of CHS chief executive officer Wayne Smith and called for his ouster at a CHS shareholders meeting in Tennessee. Days later on May 18, registered nurses at Greenbrier Valley Medical Center in Ronceverte picketed to speak out about eroding conditions at the hospital, including chronic short staffing, inadequate supplies, and maintenance problems that undermine hygiene. "I became a nurse because I wanted to help people and realized the best way to do that was to follow in my mother's footsteps and become an RN," said Tara Brammer, and RN in the ICU at Greenbrier. "I espe- cially love working in the ICU where the patients need the highest level of care due to their conditions. But to give our patients the care they need, it is absolutely essential that we have consistently safe staffing levels. Currently, that's not what's happening. We're holding the picket to let the public know that we're advocating for them, so that if they come to our hospital they can get great care." Across the hospital industry, the accept- ed standard for safe staffing in an ICU is a nurse-to-patient ratio of 1:1 or 1:2, depend- ing on patient acuity. At Greenbrier, nurses in the ICU are regularly assigned up to three patients and sometimes four, and the hospi- tal relies on pulling nurses from other units—who have not been provided appro- priate orientation to the ICU—to make up for shortfalls in staffing. Short staffing is chronic in other units as well, including medical-surgical units where nurses are often assigned to care for nine patients. The hospital has difficulty filling vacan- cies, which has exacerbated staffing prob- lems over the past few months. Since they unionized with National Nurses Organizing Committee in 2012, nurses have been bargaining for a first contract that guaran- tees the support and resources they need to provide safe, quality patient care, and that this in turn will improve the hospital's abili- ty to recruit new nurses and retain the nurs- es they currently have. Greenbrier is owned by Community Health Systems (CHS), a hospital chain based in Franklin, Tenn. The chain owns 106 hospitals in 18 states, including Bluefield Regional Medical Center in Bluefield, WV, where nurses also unionized with NNOC. The report, titled "Other People's Money: How CEO Wayne Smith gambled away the future of CHS at the expense of patients, investors, and communities," documents CHS' track record of buying hospitals in rural, non-urban markets, where lack of competition enabled them to charge some of the highest health care prices in the industry, while investing as little as possible in infra- structure, staffing, and supplies. Despite these revelations, the CHS board at the stockholder meeting approved a reso- lution to reward Smith with a compensation package quadrupling his 2018 incentive pay, despite massive losses to shareholders and untold hardship in the communities exploit- ed by CHS. Nurses were appalled. "I attend- ed the annual shareholder meeting, both as a shareholder and a nurse at a CHS-affiliat- ed hospital, to make sure that other share- holders and the board understand what is happening at the hospitals they are respon- sible for," said Brenda Meadwell, an RN who works at Bluefield. "It is wrong to reward CEO Smith with a lavish compensation package, as the value of CHS stocks plum- met alongside the plummeting quality of patient care at the chain's hospitals." In addition to mismanagement, CHS has engaged in rampant and serious unfair labor practices against the nurses in an attempt to weaken support for the union and forestall reaching an initial collective bargaining agreement. The National Labor Relations Board has upheld numerous unfair labor practice charges filed against GVMC and other CHS-affiliated hospitals by NNOC/ NNU and three U.S. District Courts issued injunctions in response to the employer's unlawful conduct early in contract negotia- tions with RNs. —Staff report A P R I L | M AY | J U N E 2 0 1 9 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 5 CHS nurses call for ouster of CEO, picket in West Virginia

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