National Nurses United

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 J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5 NEWS BRIEFS MASSACHUSETTS T he registered nurses of Newton- Wellesley Hospital, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Associa- tion/National Nurses United (MNA/NNU), recently began a leafleting and advertising campaign to alert the public about a potentially dangerous plan by Part- ners Health Care, the multibillion-dollar owner of the hospital. Partners intends to reduce RN staffing levels and increase nurs- es' patient assignments in the facility's busy emergency department, which the nurses believe will impact the quality and safety of care. The cuts come as the facility continues to make a healthy profit and the census in the ED has increased over the past year, and as the facility struggles to cope with a grow- ing flu epidemic. Newton-Wellesley Hospital operates a busy and efficient emergency department that treats more than 58,000 patients a year who are experiencing a variety of illnesses and injuries, many of them potentially life threatening, where timely care is essential. According to Laurie Andersen, a longtime ED nurse at the facility and chair of the nurses' local bargaining unit, "The patients of our hospital have been fortunate as, until now, our emergency department was staffed with a safe complement of expert nurses, with safe patient loads that allowed us to provide the timely care you expect and deserve. Unfortunately, our administration has announced a plan to reduce the number of nurses on staff, cutting a least one nurse per shift, which will increase the number of patients assigned to each nurse. This plan will decrease our ability to be flexible and efficient in providing the safe patient care the public needs." According to data gathered by the nurses, visits to the emergency department have increased by 2 percent in the past year, and in recent months, the hospital has been flooded with patients visiting the ED, particularly those suffering from flu-like illnesses. "Even without these cuts we have had several days where we are boarding patients, including intensive care patients, in the emergency department because we have no beds available to move patients to, and we have more patients coming in our doors all the time. We have had to initiate care for sick emergency patients young and old in the hallways to make sure that they receive safe care," Andersen explained. "On numer- ous occasions we have been on 'Code Orange,' which means we have no inpatient beds but the emergency department never closes or turns away sick patients. We are a busy hospital and when inpatient beds are full, the emergency department must continue to care for those patients as well as caring for all other sick or injured patients from our community. The nurses at Newton-Wellesley want to provide excellent, timely safe care to our patients and that is why we are so concerned about these cuts." According to official financial reports, these changes are being proposed at a time when the hospital posted profits in excess of $27 million and when Partners Healthcare, the corporate owner of the hospital, record- ed profits of more than $700 million over the last two years. The nurses have been actively engaged in efforts to convince management to maintain current staffing levels. More than 85 percent of the ED nurses signed a petition last year opposing this plan and, earlier this year, more than 20 nurses attended a meeting with management to speak out against the plan and what it would mean for the safety of patients. In January, the nurses began an effort to hand out leaflets to the public explaining their concerns, and followed up by placing ads in local papers about the situ- ation. The flyers and the ads ask for commu- nity members to call Newton-Wellesley's president to ask him to maintain current staffing levels at the hospital. —David Schildmeier Newton-Wellesley RNs protest emergency department cuts KAMELEON007 | ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

• Cover