Originally Posted by Mary Austin
By the way, Swedish Medical Center is planning to build a 78 million dollar boutique ortho facility by 2007 right next door to the hospital .... . They currently have two 28 bed units (56 beds) for ortho and spine. The current hospital addition was built about six years ago....it is currently a top of the line facility computerized for efficiency and delivery of care as well as maximization of profit.
It is interesting they have enough money to build a new ortho boutique hospital but they keep telling the nurses they cannot afford to pay their insurance because they do not have enough money. The nurses should be honored to pay for their own insurance for the priviledge of working at a great hospital like Swedish. Perhaps you too can be so priviledged for the honor of working at your hospital and pay for your very own health benefits forever. Of course the premiums shall rise and eventually you will pay for all of your benefits to maintain the profits of the corporation. Your wage increases will be eaten up by your health care payments so then, in effect, you will be working for what nurses were paid 40 years ago. But then are you really worth it?
I do not know of a single medical institution that hasn't been building like the Winchester mansion over the years. They appear to have adequate funds set aside to build multi-million dollar facilities yet the parasites who make money off of YOUR LABOR refuse to pay YOUR medical benefits or give pay raises do so for themselves.
I could not agree with you more. Here in Spokane, the nurses at Sacred Heart totally caved in to the hospitals demands concerning health benefits. They only gave the nurses a 5% raise but increased the cost of medical benefits 20%. This after a long contract negotiation, where is was finally accomplished after the contract had expired 4 months before, and the hospital refused to give the nurse retroactive pay from their raise. As the nurses went to vote on the contract, they put in the paperwoek to get out of WSNA. There have been takeaways in every area for at leat 15 years. The medical benefits were already expensive before this. Sacred Heart has built an overpriced Doctors Building, Heart Institute, and now, a brand new Children's Hospital. All that, and they pleaded poverty when it came time to negotiation the contract. Add that to a plethora of administrators, and managers. You get the idea. Just for the record, the hospital had to take over the Doctors building (it was built for the physicians to run) because it is losing money from competiton form the Heart Insitute at Kootenai Medical Center and in Tri Cities.
Also just for the record, the New York State Nurses Association contracts include complety employer paid medical benefits for all the RNs and their families. It is non- negotiatable at contract time. Their feelings are that the individuals who are caring fo the sick should not have to pay for their medical benefits. It is not is luxury. And has been pointed out here, the hospitals can more than afford it. If they allow this to happen, it will never stop, and before you know it, you will be paying for ALL OF YOUR MEDICAL BENEFITS. They have to take a stand. There are many employees at Sacred Heart who cannot afford to pay for the medical insurance.
I applaud you for taking a stand. I wish that is would spread to Spokane. The nurse here are so weak it isn't funny. They don't fight anything that the hospitals throw at them. The young nurses leave in droves. They barely stay 4- 5 years.
Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington
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Kim
