Curious about what my peers think about the nursing strikes in California and the recent pt death.
I am a striking nurse who was locked out of my hospital. I went on strike to keep nursing a career that attracts and keeps the best people. We are trained professionals who love our patients and love being nurses, but the corporate bosses were to treating us like worthless chattel. They presented a long list of takeaways and were unwilling to negotiate over any of it. It is a sad day when nonprofit hospitals start acting like for profit corporations who constantly threaten layoffs and takeaway benefits from nurses and patients while giving themselves fat raises. It felt powerful to unify and take a stand.
However, I am now seriously questioning my right to strike and if indeed I have placed my pts in danger. Oncology is too intense of a practice to view nurses as interchangable commodities. While a mistake could have been made by anyone at any time the reality is less mistakes are likely when nursing is practiced by a consistent team of experienced RN's. My heart goes out to the family of the pt as well as to the traveling RN who made the med error and I am just heartsick over it all.
Hello all, I have been thinking a lot about the patient who died during the strike. If it is true that the nurse ran feeding to an IV that negligence is so gross it makes me wonder if the nurse was really a nurse. There are plenty of stories of people pretending to be nurses and are able to forge nurse credentials. It just does not make sense to me that nurse, regardless of experience, would ever think that running a bag or bottle of tube to an IV made sense. Just wanted to post that thought and see what others thought. Thank you.
Maybe the nurse was a new nurse and never had a feeding tube patient? Just think of how it would be to be inexperienced, go to a new hospital, not know the computer/etc. well, not know where things are, then deal with almost every nurse there in the same situation? A bunch of new people in a new environment? Very scary for patient care.
It certainly is not that they don't want their jobs. How much do you make? What benefits do you have? Rude right, but you are in a speciality area where you can negociate with employers because you save them money. We just save lives on a med/sug floor and are looked at as a liability. We don't have an airway in with monitors hooked up to monitor every lifesign with an anesthesiologist backing us up and a surgeon right in the room with us.
to your comment. It should be about right and wrong. That is what is wrong with the world right now.
Uh...huh....You are barking up the wrong tree.
1. I work independently. I don't have an anesthesiologist backing me up or a surgeon. You have no clue what CRNAs do. I have literally worked on a island as the only anesthesia provider there. I will be going overseas to spend my Christmas in the desert this year working independently doing a variety of missions with no immediate back up. Nurses that think all CRNAs work under physicians have no clue what CRNAs do which is sad since CRNAs are the oldest nursing speciality. CRNAs have been working independently for 150yrs.
2. I don't make crap compared to a lot of California nurses. I make about 100K (my base salary is about 60K), and I only make 100K because the cost of living/cost of living adjustment where I am at is really high. That has been my choice since I am in the military.
3. My benefits are pretty good, but they are constantly up for debate in congress. My military retirement, medical benefits etc. are being debated in congress right now to see if what I spent the last 10yrs making crap for are still going to be there in another 10yrs. when I retire. This has nothing to do with what is right or wrong. It is about the economy. It isn't a personal attack on anyone.
4. I don't have a choice whether to strike or not. I could lose my job any time the USAF/DOD decides we are overmanned. It happens all the time. My speciality just happens to be pretty safe from job cuts right now. Other AF officers weren't so lucky in the last year and were essentially laid off. The Army did a massive lay off of nurses back in the 1990's. Our jobs aren't safe just because we are in the military, and neither are our benefits.
5. Sutter nurses make decent wages and have decent benefits. I don't want to see them lose either one, but the market is not in their/our favor right now.
6. As an RN we are looked at as an expense. That will never change unless at some point hospital floor nurses are able to bill directly for their services just like physicians and APNs. Then hospitals will start seeing nurses as a source of revenue instead of as an expense.
I believe this could have been avoided had the hospital let the nurses back in and not tried to punish them for striking. It didn't happen on the 1st day of the strike there is no way to blame the strikers for "leaving their patients".
The hospital thought they were being smart hiring them for 5 days when the strike was known to be a one day deal. They out thought themselves. They are not nurses they are bean counters. I think they may lose a few beans over this one, or the small firm in AL will be held accountable and put out of business, I do not think the hospital needs to get off scott free.
But the erosion of workers rights is continuing as many wish them too. Why anybody would want anyone else to work without benefits for a pittance is beyond me. Except of course for owners and CEO's, digs into the bonus, cars, big boats, and luxury vacations. I don't care if anyone makes a big salary or is successful, so get off that soapbox, (just trying to head it off at the pass). But when they do it at the expense of helpless or innocent people just trying to live or make a living I get a little steamed.
You can't have a whole hospital full of nurses who have never had unit orientation with no preceptors, and not have mistakes. Anytime this happens there are going to be mistakes. This is just worst one or at least so far it is.
1. I work independently. I don't have an anesthesiologist backing me up or a surgeon. You have no clue what CRNAs do. I have literally worked on a island as the only anesthesia provider there. I will be going overseas to spend my Christmas in the desert this year working independently doing a variety of missions with no immediate back up. Nurses that think all CRNAs work under physicians have no clue what CRNAs do which is sad since CRNAs are the oldest nursing speciality. CRNAs have been working independently for 150yrs.
2. I don't make crap compared to a lot of California nurses. I make about 100K (my base salary is about 60K), and I only make 100K because the cost of living/cost of living adjustment where I am at is really high. That has been my choice since I am in the military.
3. My benefits are pretty good, but they are constantly up for debate in congress. My military retirement, medical benefits etc. are being debated in congress right now to see if what I spent the last 10yrs making crap for are still going to be there in another 10yrs. when I retire. This has nothing to do with what is right or wrong. It is about the economy. It isn't a personal attack on anyone.
4. I don't have a choice whether to strike or not. I could lose my job any time the USAF/DOD decides we are overmanned. It happens all the time. My speciality just happens to be pretty safe from job cuts right now. Other AF officers weren't so lucky in the last year and were essentially laid off. The Army did a massive lay off of nurses back in the 1990's. Our jobs aren't safe just because we are in the military, and neither are our benefits.
5. Sutter nurses make decent wages and have decent benefits. I don't want to see them lose either one, but the market is not in their/our favor right now.
6. As an RN we are looked at as an expense. That will never change unless at some point hospital floor nurses are able to bill directly for their services just like physicians and APNs. Then hospitals will start seeing nurses as a source of revenue instead of as an expense.
I have tried to answer 3 times and have gotten kicked off each time (divine intervention)? But I do want to reply to your answer, but have to cook dinner, so will try later.
Again thank you for your service, you don't make enough, your benefits should never be in question (we are going to have to cut off Congress's healthcare so they can be more empathtic. (you don't have to address that, since they are your bosses, its just IMHO). Just so you know I worked 9 years in surgery with many CRNA's so I do know a little about what you do and some about the rich and deep rooted history. I think I did mention that nurses are a liability to hospitals because they pay us, (they claim) without charging for our services. Always the bottom line never the human. Getting dirty looks, bye.
I have tried to answer 3 times and have gotten kicked off each time (divine intervention)? But I do want to reply to your answer, but have to cook dinner, so will try later.
Again thank you for your service, you don't make enough, your benefits should never be in question (we are going to have to cut off Congress's healthcare so they can be more empathtic. (you don't have to address that, since they are your bosses, its just IMHO). Just so you know I worked 9 years in surgery with many CRNA's so I do know a little about what you do and some about the rich and deep rooted history. I think I did mention that nurses are a liability to hospitals because they pay us, (they claim) without charging for our services. Always the bottom line never the human. Getting dirty looks, bye.
You understand CRNAs from an ACT practice point of view. ACT practices have a extremely limited scope of practice for CRNAs, and those type of practices are set up from the political point of view of the ASA to protect the bottom line of anesthesiologists. It isn't about patient safety.
I don't mind my salary. I don't like the fact that most USAF floor nurses that have the same amount time in as me make more money than I do with a lot less responsibility, and that I had to take a pay cut to become a USAF CRNA. I knew what I was getting into though, and I would choose to do it again. Sorry personal soapbox......
This whole thing comes down to the same thing. The economy is bad right now, and there are a glut of nurses in many parts of the country. This is a bad time to be negotiating from the employee side of the house. How many 5 day "lockouts" do you think these nurses can afford before they cave in? Sutter made 3.9 billion in profits last year. Sutter should easily be able to afford to replace all the nurses indefinitely. I would be having a hard look at my union leadership right now if I was Sutter nurse.....just my
I am one of "those nurses" who crossed the picket line. I have very valid reasons as to why I worked. The union ordered nurses at my hospital to engage in what they called a "sympathy strike". It had NOTHING to do with my contract with my employer. I have an excellent contract until 2014. We had no takeaways, 2 raises each year along with a yearly BONUS. I have FULL healthcare coverage for my whole family with no co-pays. Our contract just began Sept.1 The union said we were striking because WE ARE NEXT to have benefits taken away in 2014. Really?? Since when can a union predict the future? I was ashamed at this decision CNA made. The other hospitals I understand the need to strike due to working without a contract and take-aways...but I still really wonder if it should even be legal for nurses to strike! Cops and firefighters can't strike.
I worked with some good replacement nurses, but I also heard of one who didn't know much at all on another shift. The unions ARE putting patients at risk when they strike. I dont have anything against the replacement nurses, if it wasn't for them, who would be caring for the patients?? CNA has gotten way too big. We don't have a choice with them. They make the decisions for us. My decision has been to become a non-dues paying member. Most nurses don't know they can do this. You can have your dues reduced to only what the union really needs, but you can't vote. So what? Our votes don't really count anyway. The bargaining council makes all the decisions! Or your dues can be entirely donated to charity. Something to think about;)
I am also one of the nurses on strike who was locked out for 5 days. I blame the lockout- not the strike for this patient's death. The hospital wanted to punish us for striking for one day. Instead of putting patients first, they locked us out for 5 to punitively strike at our paychecks.
I still believe that the strike was necessary. I still believe that the reasons for striking were valid. I am terribly sorry for the person who lost their life and for their family, but I know that it was NOT my fault. It was not YOUR fault either. We all know as nurses that medication error is possible. We all triple and quadruple check ourselves, our meds, and our orders before giving any med. This nurse made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake. She and the hospital are responsible for this death. Not the striking nurses.
Obviously this hospital does not have a double check meds system in place. All meds should be double checked with another RN!!
Really? That is silly if you think about it. Nothing would ever get done, and you essentially have to double your staff.
ummm...not silly at all. I work in a unit where it is required to have every single med double checked by another RN. We do it all the time. A few extra seconds or a minute is all it requires to save somebody's life and prevent errors.
to your comment. It should be about right and wrong. That is what is wrong with the world right now.
RN691
12 Posts
Hello all, I have been thinking a lot about the patient who died during the strike. If it is true that the nurse ran feeding to an IV that negligence is so gross it makes me wonder if the nurse was really a nurse. There are plenty of stories of people pretending to be nurses and are able to forge nurse credentials. It just does not make sense to me that nurse, regardless of experience, would ever think that running a bag or bottle of tube to an IV made sense. Just wanted to post that thought and see what others thought. Thank you.