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Nurses

Nurse Fired During Fight For PPE Now Facing Board Of Nursing Investigation

December 1, 2020 We Do The Work, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Cliff Willmeng, the RN employed at Allina Health’s United Hospital in St Paul, Minnesota, who was fired during workplace struggles for frontline safety and patient care, received notification that Allina Health reported him to the Minnesota Board of Nursing last week. The Board of Nursing, the state governmental body that issues and maintains licenses for registered nurses, can both censor nurses and revoke nurses’ licenses. Willlmeng has never been reported to any Board of Nursing during his 13-year nursing career, which spans three states and includes employment in emergency medicine, intensive care, and other nursing specialties.

Athletes Get COVID-19 Tests While Nurses Are Refused Testing

November 29, 2020 Kent Babb, Seattle Times. , , ,
On her day off not long ago, emergency room nurse Jane Sandoval sat with her husband and watched her favorite NFL team, the San Francisco 49ers. She’s off every other Sunday, and even during the coronavirus pandemic, this is something of a ritual. Jane and Carlos watch, cheer, yell — just one couple’s method of escape. “It makes people feel normal,” she says. For Sandoval, though, it has become more and more difficult to enjoy as the season — and the pandemic — wears on.

Interview With Striking Nurse In Philadelphia Suburb

November 24, 2020 Left Voice. , , ,
On Tuesday, November 17, nurses at St. Mary Medical Center (SMMC) in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, went on strike after management refused to establish safe staffing ratios to confront the growing numbers of Covid cases at the hospital. Left Voice spoke with Drew, who has been a nurse for three years and, for the last year, has worked in the inpatient Endoscopy unit at the hospital. He is a rank-and-file member of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), which represents nurses at St. Mary, and has been on the picket line during the strike.

Nurse Survey Exposes Hospitals’ Failure To Prepare For Covid-19 Surge

November 21, 2020 National Nurses United. , , ,
National Nurses United’s new nationwide survey of more than 15,000 registered nurses reveals that 11 months into the pandemic, hospitals are failing to prepare for a surge of Covid-19 cases during flu season and that basic infection control and prevention measures are still lacking. Nurses cite the health care industry’s inappropriate pursuit of profit during this public health crisis as the main reason for its failure to follow the proper infection control measures that nurses have been demanding since the beginning of the pandemic.

With COVID-19 Resurgence, Nurses Speak Out About Unsafe Conditions

October 19, 2020 New York State Nurses Association. , , ,
New York, NY— Nurses from Albany Medical Center gathered in front of the hospital to highlight conditions that may threaten nurse and patient safety, as the region prepares for a second surge of COVID-19. In the Capital District, newly identified COVID-19 cases have been trending upward since August, and in late September, spiked to their highest rate since July. After 7 months of the COVID pandemic, nurses are speaking out about the continued lack of preparations and safety protocols at Albany Med.

Two-Week Strike By Illinois Nurses In Danger

July 19, 2020 By Benjamin Mateus and Jerry White, WSWS. , , , ,
Joliet, IL - The two-week strike by 720 nurses at the AMITA St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Joliet, Illinois is at a critical juncture. The nurses, who walked out on July 4, are demanding improvements that are necessary for all health care workers, particularly in the midst of the pandemic: safer patient-to-nurse ratios, improved wages and protection against management retaliation. However, the Illinois Nurses Association (INA), the state AFL-CIO and major unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) have forced the nurses to fight one of the largest hospital chains in the state alone, even as AMITA brings in out-of-state strikebreakers and threatens striking workers with poverty if they don’t capitulate.

Nurse Strike Wave Grows

July 12, 2020 Mike Elk, Payday Report. , , ,
As the country undergoes a severe surge of COVID cases, many hospitals are still short of PPE. Nurses across the country went on strike this week demanding these vital protections.  This week, nurses at the AMITA Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Ill. continued the strike they began on Saturday. In response, the hospital has even brought in “scab replacement” nurses to keep the hospital staffed.  The nurses report making progress at the bargaining table and feel confident they are close to a deal.  “It’s getting better,” union leader Pat Meade told the Joliet Herald-News, but she warned that they gave up “so much” in the deal as well.   For more, head to the Joliet Herald-News. 

Survey Of Nurses Proves Widespread Disregard For Nurse And Patient Safety

May 21, 2020 National Nurses United. , , ,
National Nurses United (NNU) released data from its new nationwide survey of nearly 23,000 nurses, revealing that dangerous health care workplace conditions have become the norm since COVID-19 struck the United States, which nurses say shows a complete disregard for worker and public health on the part of health care employers and the government. The main way nurses and patients are put at risk is through lack of optimal personal protective equipment (PPE). “Months into the pandemic, the virus continues to threaten communities across the country, and more than 100 nurses have died of COVID-19. This new survey shows that nurses are still fighting today for optimal personal protective equipment (PPE), fighting to get tested, and fighting for their own lives, and their patients’ lives,” said NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN.

COVID-19 Deaths Among Nurses: US 91, Canada 0. Why?

May 13, 2020 By Mark Gruenberg, People's World. , , ,
There’s a yawning gap between the number of U.S. nurses the viral pandemic has killed so far in the U.S. and the number of Canadian nurses killed. The count as of May 11: U.S. 91, Canada, 0. That prompted National Nurses United President Zunei Cortez, RN, of California and her Canadian counterpart, Linda Silas, RN, to meet each other via Zoom on May 11, with hundreds of nurses from both nations listening in, to discuss why. And it all comes down to the fact, both agreed, that Canada’s nationalized health system, despite a large hole involving nursing homes, puts people – patients and practitioners – before profits, while the U.S. is the other way around.

Row Upon Row Of Empty Shoes Outside White House

May 11, 2020 Eoin Higgins, Comomndreams. , , ,
National Nurses United held a vigil in front of President Donald Trump's White House on Thursday, a remembrance for 88 nurses—represented by solemn rows of empty whites shoes—who have died so far from the coronavirus as the pandemic continues to rage across the U.S. amid the president's continued mismanagement. "Who will care for our patients when we get sick?" tweeted NNU executive director Bonnie Castillo. As Common Dreams has reported, pleas from healthcare workers for personal protective equipment (PPE) and aid have largely gone unanswered as the outbreak continues to spread around the nation. In a press release issued Thursday, NNU demanded that Congress and the White House prioritize frontline workers in the next stage of coronavirus legislation. "The next Covid-19 relief package is being discussed and finalized, and we are demanding that senators include critical protections to keep nurses safe in the bill," the group said.

It’s Bigger Than Scrubs – My Termination From United Hospital ER

May 11, 2020 Cliff Willmeng, RN, Popular Resistance. , , ,
For months, working conditions, patient safety, public health, and the rights of union members have been degraded and placed at risk by Allina hospital administration’s policies, behavior, and egregious lack of preparation for a global pandemic. This is not a matter of opinion or perspective but documented fact, evidenced by hundreds of OSHA complaints, failing infection protocols, communications of frontline healthcare workers, and hospital administration’s ongoing acts of intimidation, harassment, and threats to our professional standing.    Hospital administrators placed profits and executive compensation over protection of employees, year after year. The resulting failure and disorganization have pushed workplace safety, nursing practice, public health, and our rights as workers to a breaking point.

Defying Trump’s Order, Nebraska Meatpackers Strike And More Strike News

April 30, 2020 Mike Elk, Pay Day Report. , , ,
Earlier today, Trump announced that he intended to use the power of the federal government and the Defense Production Act to keep meat processing plants open throughout the United States.  The move comes as massive outbreaks with hundreds of workers have hit meatpacking plants throughout the U.S. As a result, scores of meatpacking plants have closed because of outbreaks.  Strikes and mass sickouts at a dozen meatpacking plants throughout the U.S. have led to the closure of additional plants.  It’s unclear how Trump intends to use the Defense Production Act to force meat packing processing workers back into the assembly line.  Organized labor immediately denounced the move. “We only wish that this administration cared as much about the lives of working people as it does about meat, pork, and poultry products."

Nurses Protest At White House For Mass Production Of PPE For Health Care Workers

April 22, 2020 National Nurses United. , , , ,
Registered Nurses held a protest in front of the White House on Tuesday, April 21 to call attention to the tens of thousands of health care workers nationwide who have become infected with COVID-19 due to lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). The nurses, members of National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of RNs in the country, practiced social distancing and read aloud the names U.S. nurses who are known to have died of COVID-19. Nurses have been demanding that the Trump administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) promulgate an emergency temporary standard so that health care workers are provided with the optimal PPE. NNU petitioned OSHA on March 4, 2020 for such a standard and never received a response. 

St. Vincent Hospital Nurses Face Furloughs Amid COVID-19 Crisis

April 17, 2020 Mark Conti, Telegram.com. , , ,
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.”

National Health Care Day Of Action April 15

April 14, 2020 Chris Brooks, Labor Notes. , , ,
We are health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic. Please support our National Day of Action on Tax Day, April 15, to tell the world that #TheSystemIsBroken and demand that we reorganize the U.S. health care system to prioritize the interests of patients over those of billionaires and corporations. Our private, for-profit health care system has left us with a deep scarcity of resources and properly trained health care workers. We are not heroes and we did not enlist to die in our jobs due to government inaction and corporate greed. The pandemic has clearly exposed why critical infrastructure, including our country’s health care, cannot be left to the market.  The mass graves being dug for tomorrow are made deeper by the political choices made today.
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