Worcester, MA — On the same day Gov. Charlie Baker announced that Massachusetts was in a COVID-19 surge, nurses at St. Vincent Hospital are facing furloughs.
St. Vincent Hospital nurses on the union negotiating committee on Wednesday unanimously rejected a proposal by Tenet Healthcare, the for-profit company that owns the hospital, that the nurses said would require them to work independently in areas of the hospital in which they did not have proper training or experience.
“They’re asking us to agree to a mandatory furlough of nurses,” said Marie Ritacco, a nurse in the post-anesthesia recovery area, PACU. “We’re expecting the surge. We need to keep every nurse.”
According to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, Tenet informed the nurses Wednesday that if the proposal was not approved by 6 p.m. that day, “the hospital intends to implement measures … which will likely include mandatory furloughs and necessary flexing.”
Dominique Muldoon, co-chair of the nurses bargaining unit and nurse on one of the hospital’s seven COVID-19 units, said the nurses intend to do everything they can to ensure they have the resources needed to provide proper care.
“Every day, we are putting our lives and the lives of our families on the line to provide the best care possible. We need all the help we can get, and this decision cuts our legs right out from under us, and it is our patients, scared and struggling for breath, who may pay the ultimate price,” Muldoon said.
David Schildmeier of the MNA said Tenet threatened on Friday to implement mandatory furloughs, including the right to cancel and reduce staff on a daily basis. The MNA immediately alerted local, state and federal officials about the plan, and they helped bring Tenet and the union into talks.
After days of discussions between the union and Tenet, the offer was brought to the union Wednesday, the union said.
The talks aimed to reach an agreement on voluntary furloughs and minimal staff reductions. However, there was one major sticking point, according to the nurses. Tenet wanted nurses to agree to being redeployed into any department to work independently, even in areas where they may not be properly trained or have experience. And nurses said that violates their contract and would not be safe.
“Nurses are not opposed to working anywhere in the hospital, they just want to do it safely. The hospital said they’re taking away that right,” Schildmeier said.
Repeated phone calls and emails to Tenet Healthcare were not returned Wednesday.
“Tenet’s decision to cut staff comes as across the street, the state and the city of Worcester has transformed the DCU Center into a makeshift hospital to respond to the surge, and while the state has issued an order allowing the recruitment of retired health workers to be called into active service and another allowing senior nursing students, who haven’t completed their education, to provide care in this emergency,” the MNA said in a prepared statement.
There are about 840 nurses at St. Vincent Hospital, according to the union.
UMass Memorial Health Care has not made any staff reductions, but has redeployed more than 300 employees, according to a hospital spokesman.
“Due to changes and suspensions of services across our system, many departments are either closed, open but with significantly reduced volume, or operating on a remote basis. At a time when many organizations have had to furlough or lay off workers, we are fortunate to be in a position to impact the financial well-being of our caregivers (those unable to work due to these developments) by providing them with administrative pay through May 2 of this year,” UMass Memorial spokesman Tony Berry said.
UMass Memorial Health Care, a nonprofit health system and the largest employer in Central Massachusetts, employs about 13,000 people.