The striking nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital bring their complaints to Tenet Healthcare – literally.
A delegation of nurses will deliver a 16-foot petition signed by more than 700 members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association to Tenet Healthcare in Dallas on Wednesday, the union said.
The petition calls on Tenet, the parent company of Saint Vincent Hospital, to resume negotiations in good faith in order to reach an agreement. It reiterated the nurse’s request for an increase in staff, which was the main topic of all discussions.
“After months of unsuccessful efforts to convince the St. Vincent Hospital administration to provide us with the resources we need to protect our patients and our community, we made the decision to travel to Dallas, Texas, and direct speak to the company’s executives who have the best. “Control over the safety and quality of care at our hospital,” said Marlena Pellegrino, longtime registered nurse at St. Vincent Hospital and co-chair of the local Massachusetts Nursing Unit Nurses Association.
In a statement released over the weekend, the hospital said it had informed the federal mediator that it was ready to respond with another offer to the nurses. The hospital said the nurses turned down offers to meet on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
The final round of discussion began when Saint Vincent Hospital made a proposal to the nurses on June 27, the first since May 5.
The MNA said their counter-proposal includes patient referral ratios of 4 to 1 and 5 to 1 in the fields of medicine, surgery and telemetry. It also called for an increase in the staffing of the emergency room and the addition of nurses and other staff to ensure that nurses can respond quickly to changing patient needs and patients in need of more intensive care.
The Saint Vincent Hospital accepted its offer provided day and evening shifts for all medical or surgical departments, as well as incremental resource nurses in other areas of the hospital, regardless of patient counting. It also limited the number of patients the nurses could admit to be available to other nurses or in special circumstances that arise.
Saint Vincent Hospital also said the proposal was made up of other contracts the MNA has signed across Massachusetts.
The nurses strike in Worcester is on the second longest in the history of the state. The longest strike by nurses in Massachusetts lasted six months in 1980 by nurses at Burbank Hospital in Fitchburg, the MNA said.
The strike started on March 8th more than 700 nurses are calling for an increase in staff. The two sides did not meet for seven weeks. At the end of April and beginning of May, the sisters and Tenet met three times within 10 days in what seemed to be a sign of progress. Since then, however, the negotiations have broken up.
In May, the Saint Vincent Hospital advertised a permanent replacement care position to fill 102 positions. Items include emergency room, post-anesthesia supply unit, medical and surgical positions on the same day.
Related content:
