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10 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 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 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4 NEWS BRIEFS WASHINGTON, D.C. R egistered nurses at Washing- ton Hospital Center, part of the Medstar Health hospital chain and the area's largest facility, held a one-day strike on Dec. 22. In retaliation, the hospital locked the nurses out for another 10 days, unnecessarily extending the period of time that the registered nursing staff would be away from the bedside. RNs rallied at noon the day of the strike to speak out on the need for nurses to have a much greater voice in patient care decisions, and the conditions that led to the strike, including short staffing, unfair labor prac- tices, and hospital executives' refusal to fair- ly address matters of health, safety, and equity for patients and nurses. According to just-released data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, MedStar Washington Hospital Center is among a minority of hospitals that will have its Medicare reimbursement payments docked by a 0.31 percent as a penalty under Medicare's Value Based Purchasing program (VBP) in FY 2015. The penalty is based on quality of care and patient satisfaction performance measures. Nurses say the Medicare penalty is an indicator that there are unaddressed patient care issues at their workplace. "We have raised serious concerns about safe staffing and clinical practices and received no adequate response from management," said Mindy Blandon, RN. "We are striking because our patients' lives are at stake." Understaffing is a major problem at the hospital. This practice not only jeop- ardizes safety for both patients and nurs- es, but undermines morale and causes nurses to look elsewhere for places to practice. "Washington Hospital Center management routinely and dangerously understaffs nurses, putting patients at risk," said Gandessa Orteza, RN. "Poor staffing, substandard pay, and unsafe working conditions have led to high turnover in bedside nurses and this attri- tion undermines the quality of care patients receive." On Nov. 26, hospital executives acted unilaterally, and what nurses believe to be illegally, in implementing what they call their "last, best, and final" offer and declared an impasse, despite the fact that the registered nurse were ready and willing to continue negotiations with hospital executives to protect quality patient care and safe working conditions. So nurses voted in late November to reject the hospi- tal's final offer and authorize a strike. —Staff report Washington Hospital Center nurses strike RICK REINHARD