Fort Worth ER Nurses Unite

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

john peter smith hospital's emergency room is part of a state-of-the-art medical pavilion, open less than a year. but conditions in the er's "green room," as described recently by one nurse, sounded more like those of a one-doctor hospital in the middle of an epidemic.

"there were a couple of times when i thought patients were going to start a riot in there," nurse joe snow said. "it's like you're taking care of a small town with only two nurses and one technician at a time. ... one man can't take care of an entire army."

the "green room" is where patients whose ailments have been deemed not immediately life-threatening are sent to be screened while they wait for further treatment ... and wait and wait....

...snow and other jps emergency room nurses have been so frustrated and scared by er conditions that they did something that nurses may have never done before in a fort worth hospital: they organized so that they could speak as a group. and then they took public action.

in recent weeks, the nurses drafted a petition asking for more staff to be assigned in the green room. and last month, they mailed the petition to management, signed by 28 of the hospital's 55 er nurses....

http://www.fwweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1148:nurses-unite&catid=30:cover-story&itemid=375