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Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Tue, 07/31/2007 - 10:22pm.
[A nurse from St. Peter (preferring to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) asked me to post the following message:] By now, many people have become aware of the ongoing negotiations between nurses and the Administration at St. Peter Hospital. What needs to be emphasized regarding the plight of nurses at St. Peter is that, although we do want and deserve fair compensation for the intensely demanding work we do, our primary concern at this point is quality of care. A few years ago, those high on the Providence corporate hierarchy initiated what they called The Restructure: a grand downsizing scheme implemented gradually through a series of layoffs of Nursing Assistants and other staff who helped RNs provide for patients. CEO Jim Leonard (who, along with other CEO's such as Connie Huber and Scott Bond, has been handsomely rewarded with many hundreds of thousands of dollars for implementing the restructure) publicly announced that St Peter had been well above the national average for staffing levels and that the Administration's goal was to remedy that "problem" by aiming to achieve staffing levels in the 50th percentile. Consequently, RNs now often take ALONE the same -- or nearly the same -- patient load they managed 4 years ago IN PARTNERSHIP with a Nursing Assistant or an LPN. There now is only a fraction of the staff that was available to the care of patients 4 years ago. And, yes, of course the quality of care has declined as a result! The administration has tried to spin this profit-driven scheme as an effort to IMPROVE care by increasing the percentage of staff which are licensed RNs. It's an Orwellian argument: We're slashing the number of people available to provide for patient needs, but the quality of care will improve because now a higher percentage of this radically lower number of staff will be licensed professionals. But no matter how you spin it, fewer hands and eyes looking after the patients will lead to, and HAS resulted in, diminishing quality of care. (Meanwhile, the top CEO for the Providence Healthcare System made over a million dollars last year.) The nurses at St. Peter believe in our work and want to give patients the quality of care they deserve. We do our best under very difficult circumstances. And although we are increasingly isolated in our work, we do an amazing job of pulling together. But unless things turn around and staffing levels improve, St. Peter Hospital may soon begin to seriously fail in its mission of service to this community. What is needed now is pressure from the public: phone calls and letters to the Administration, and especially letters to the editor of the Olympian in support of St. Peter nurses, demanding improved staffing levels and a fair contract. Help us return St. Peter Hospital to it's core values and mission of service! |
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Thank you
Submitted by enpen on Tue, 07/31/2007 - 10:24pm.Nurses-St. Pete's
Submitted by Mandi.Oly on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 4:51pm.It's a two-way street
Submitted by Norm on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 2:06pm.Sorry for the run-on
Submitted by Norm on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 2:11pm.Thanks for the
Submitted by Merwyn Haskett on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 3:01pm.We are the precious chosen few, let all the rest be damned. There's only room for one or two, we can't have Heaven crammed!
Slacking and Firing
Submitted by Robert Whitlock on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 4:59pm.If there was a problem with some of the Nurses' performance, those issues would have been better addressed on an individual level.
Norm, your statement makes it sound like the reason for the lay-offs was because the Nurses weren't working hard enough. But the reason given by management (and I think widely accepted by everyone else) is that the hospital administration wanted to be more competitive, in a financial sense (obviously not in a quality of care sense), with other hospitals.
It's not good to have overworked nurses. There is more room for error for one thing. And it's just not fair to the nurses as human beings to be forced to work like that.
So while it may be true that nurses are angry about working conditions - wouldn't you be mad too if you were forced to take on the work of two or three people by yourself?
Personally, I think your interpretation is a distortion and a distraction. Your claim that nurses weren't working hard enough is subjective analysis and I would like to see that claim substantiated by several sources, including impartial bystanders.
Nurses deserve a healthy and stress free work environment so that they can provide the maximal level of care without being in a hurry. That's the bottom line I see in this.
Feel free to stop by
Submitted by Norm on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 5:30pm.Personally I don't care what you think of my views here Rob. I don't think the administrations decision was based solely on cost.
In fact I think very little of it comes down to cost. Which is more expensive, a hospital or a nursing home? Look at the RN vs LPN/CNA statistics in the two. How is the hospital making more money by firing the lower paid employees, and having to hire more of the higher paid employees? As soon as the CNA's were let go there was a HUGE hiring push for RN's. This would seem to defeat the purpose, no?
The performance issues were constantly addressed. Due to a STRONG union (not a bad thing) nothing ever happend. Not unlike dumbshit cops keeping their jobs because of their union.
Here's the deal Rob: I'm telling you what I saw, firsthand, for the first (almost) 4 years of working at St. Pete's. There was lots of inner-turmoil and our manager worked along side of us on the floors. He frequently talked with other admins about issues with RN's on different floors. I truly feel that had something to do with this decision. I also believe that people wanted "more qualified" nurses to check their blood-pressure. You don't have to believe me, I'm just leaving my input.
So while it may be true that nurses are angry about working conditions - wouldn't you be mad too if you were forced to take on the work of two or three people by yourself?
I'm not saying they shouldn't be mad. I'm just saying I think the reasons it happend may be deeper than the surface "money" issue. And yes, I am mad all the time. My position was a 2 person job when I first started...then it became a 1.5 person job....now it's a 1 person job. Unfortunately the union doesn't feel my position is important enough to let me be part of the gang. I need more education I guess, like the housekeeping crew, or dietary, or possibly the secretaries.
Finally, I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that I don't care about the nurses problem at this point. SO in case you missed it let me highlight some of my remarks for you Rob:
First, I should point out that I have much respect for nursing staff, as a whole. Nobody could pay me enough to do what some of them do every day. This nurse is absolutely correct in stating that the quality of care has declined........There were quite a few of us who were disgusted when so many of the CNA/LPN/PCP's were let go...... I don't think the change was the right thing to do.....
Catch all that? Rob I have friends that are nurses, I've dated a handful of nurses, I have relatives who are nurses. So don't try dicking me around. I care more about these folks than most, and certainly more than you do. I work with them everyday and I know the good ones....and I know the bad ones. The bad ones will always be bad though, it doesn't matter what the staffing level is.
Nurses will NEVER have a healthy and stress free work environment. Why do you think so many of them burn out? It's an incredibly demanding job.
Rob, I invite you to come on down and take a look at the nurses on the different floors/units. I think you may be a little shocked but hey, you seem to know how this whole thing works.
Thanks for sharing...
Submitted by blagoblag on Thu, 08/02/2007 - 11:40am.contradiction?
Submitted by catscradle on Fri, 08/03/2007 - 9:25am.Norm said:
"Nurses will NEVER have a healthy and stress free work environment. Why do you think so many of them burn out? It's an incredibly demanding job."
How does that mesh with your original post that the nurses spend their shifts searching the personals on a computer, playing computer games, not doing patient care. Its one way or the other and in my experience its the way you state it in the quote above.
When I visit the hospital the nurses look harried and overworked and like they are juggling a million important responsibilities.
I am very sad to learn that St. Pete's has lost the staff needed to maintain the excellent level of care it used to have, which used to set it well above any hospital in Seattle as far as patient experience goes.
I wonder what St. Pete's is doing with all the money it used to spend on the wages of LPN's and CNA's?
Let me take you back to grade school
Submitted by Norm on Fri, 08/03/2007 - 10:43am.If you remember right, during grade school, in English classes, you probably learned about grammatical tenses. Let me help you out. Here's part of what I wrote:
"The pcp's that I worked with were (nearly all of them) excellent at their job. They comforted people, they made sure everyone was taken care of and they did it with a smile on their faces. At the same time, MANY of us in the professional/clinical side of the hospital (non-nurses) were getting sick of the RN's. We would see CNA's and LPN's flying around getting everything done and not getting paid nearly as well as the RN's. Many of these RN's were getting paid well and, quite frankly, doing jack squat. I can't begin to count the number of times that I would be working with a patient, need help with something out of my scope, and wait for forever for an RN only to give up, finish with the patient, and decide to leave a note in the chart. It's certainly NOT a good feeling to watch LPN's and CNA's running around working, while you are working, and then watch RN's surfing the personals on one of the PC's, or selling something on Ebay, or playing "Cubis" for hours during their shift. When some (just some) RN's figure they've done their job if the patient doesn't die, and they take a report at beginning of shift, and give report at the end of shift, you HAVE to wonder why they are being paid so much. I'd like to say this is a rare occurence but it wasn't. Obviously by taking the CNA's out of the picture the RN's now HAVE to do actual patient care."
Now, if you flipped through that you'd notice that some words are underlined and some are underlined and italicized. First, the underlined and italicized words should cue the reader to know that I am talking in the "past tense". This past tense would be before the nursing change happend, what the Anon nurse calls "...truly a golden period....". There was no staff shortage and there were quite a few PCP/CNA's to help with patient care.
When I said, "Nurses will NEVER have a healthy and stress free work environment. Why do you think so many of them burn out? It's an incredibly demanding job." I was speaking of ALL nursing staff, not just the RN's. The nurses that I mentioned above that seemed to be doing things other than patient care had, in my opinion, probably already burned out. I'm sure they were still stressed though, and obviously if they were doing nothing, and the PCP/LPN's were doing everything than they (the PCP/LPN's) did not have a healthy or stress free work environment. Also, you can have a nurse that spends very little time caring for patients and still be stressed out. I'm sure Anon-nurse can back me up on it being feast or famine at times. I think that's true for many medical professions though. One day you are dragging because you've been running full-throttle all day, the next you might have really low census and find yourself a little bored. Make sense?
use this: >p
Submitted by Rob Richards on Wed, 08/01/2007 - 2:31pm.