National Nurses United

NewsBriefs_Sept 11/6/10 1:29 PM Page 8 NEWS BRIEFS Watsonville RNs On Strike CALIFORNIA R egistered nurse Roxanne Heisinger can't help but start to cry when she thinks about the care that patients at Watsonville Community Hospital, where she works, are not getting. Her telemetry unit is so short staffed that patients are not getting fed and changed promptly. Others are falling and hurting themselves. "Nobody should have to vomit on themselves and lay there without having that cleaned up right away," said Heisinger. "I have little old ladies who are confused and falling. We don't have enough people watching them. They've cut our support staff and they're not taking acuity into account." Despite attempts by Heisinger and her coworkers to solve staffing issues at the bargaining table over the past nine months, the hospital has barely acknowledged their concerns. So Watsonville Community Hospital's 300 RNs staged a one-day strike on Oct. 26 to show administrators that they mean business. The hospital, which used to be a community facility but in 1999 was purchased by corporate hospital chain Community 8 N AT I O N A L N U R S E Health Systems (CHS) in Tennessee, responded by putting the emergency room on diversion five days before the strike, and then locking out the nurses for two additional days. Nurses at the facility, many of whom have worked there for decades, said they were extremely upset that patient care has deteriorated under CHS' ownership and that the company has retaliated against them for simply wanting to take better care of patients. They are more determined than ever to reverse this trend. "Does anyone remember when we used to routinely give back rubs to patients?" asked Tim Thomas, an operating room RN, of a large crowd of coworkers during a spirited noon rally on the strike lines outside the hospital. "We don't do that anymore. We are slipping away from the care we used to give 20 years ago. [Management] needs to know we have deep concerns about the care we give and our relationship with the hospital." RNs at Watsonville Community Hospital report that understaffing, staffing not based on acuity, and lack of meal-and-break-relief RNs is jeopardizing the safety and care of patients. Heisinger estimates that for 98 percent of her shifts, the hospital's acuity software says her four patients on average require 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 three hours of care each. That's 12 hours of care. Yet her shift in telemetry is eight hours. "With the bad economy, people are waiting longer and longer to come to the hospital. They are so much sicker," she said. Many RNs criticized the hospital for not factoring acuity into staffing decisions. "We need an acuity system that works," said Mary Kelly, a medical-surgical charge nurse at WCH. "Ratios say those numbers are the minimums. But to them, a 5 is a 5 is a 5." The nurses' contract expired in July, and Thomas, who is chief nurse representative and also a member of the negotiating committee, said the hospital has refused to bargain in earnest with the RNs by constantly postponing and rescheduling meetings, and by simply saying no to every proposal. Carmen Attanasio, a surgical ICU RN at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Pennsylvania, knows what that feels like. He and his coworkers have also been trying to bargain a contract with Community Health Systems since last summer. "I am sick of it. I'm sick of how CHS treats hospitals all around the country," said Attanasio, who had traveled to the Watsonville strike in support of the RNs. "We just want you to know that your fight is our fight."—Staff report O C TO B E R 2 0 1 0

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