'Silencing nurses endangers patients' care'
The results of the studies have been released and they prove what every hospital nurse knows from experience. Understaffing endangers patients.
For each additional patient assigned to an RN, the likelihood of death within 30 days increases by 7 percent. Four additional patients increase the risk by 31 percent (JAMA, 10/22/02)....
...NPO nurses have exposed the understaffing, testified on patient care issues in Frankfort, won back the jobs of nurses unjustly dismissed, called in the state inspectors, testified before the JCAHO, spoken to the press, and kept alive the hope that staff nurses can organize and make things better. Bruised but never broken, the NPO has now won another victory.
The turtle's pace of labor law enforcement in our nation allows employers to delay interminably. First Columbia/HCA, and then Norton Healthcare, stalled the progress for the 13 years since the 1994 election at Audubon. In August, the NLRB turned down Norton Audubon's appeal of one of NPO's cases....
...In November, Norton Audubon paid over $171,000 to three nurses who were unlawfully denied positions. Nurses at Audubon and in Louisville now have a new opportunity to organize and to win the right to practice under truly professional conditions...
. ...When Norton Healthcare, called Alliant at the time, purchased Audubon Hospital, there was an NLRB bargaining order in place. Norton Audubon didn't sit down and bargain with the nurses. Instead Norton Healthcare spent our community's health care dollars on a nine year oppositional path of challenges to NLRB orders and to nurses' rights.
Among Norton Healthcare's numerous unfair labor practices are: unlawful discipline for protected activity, unlawful termination, unlawful denial of a position, unlawful restriction of the right to distribute literature in the cafeteria and non-work areas, unlawful restriction of the right of a nurse to speak about the union in the break room, unlawful institution of a more restrictive distribution policy in response to a union campaign, unlawful attack on a nurse's license, and unlawful interrogation.
The NLRB overturned the unfair election at Audubon Hospital and has ordered a new election. Audubon nurses are talking and organizing and will move forward to advocate for their patients and to build their union. Nurses across Louisville are once again hopeful. When nurses organize, the patients and the community are the beneficiaries. Silencing nurses endangers patients.
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/...ON02/712030371
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