striking nurses

RN1982 · Jul 16, 2008

After a while all these complaints about nursing gets old. I challenge some of these people to work a shift or two. They'll sit there and say that we are the backbone and that they could never do what we do but gee, when something goes wrong the first people they blame are the nurses.

RN4MERCY · Jul 17, 2008

my 2 yo daughter was severely "damaged" because of a nursing strike. We were 2 weeks post op from open heart surgery. She went downhill fast one day. At hospital, we crossed the line to get her cared for. We ended up in ped. icu where they did their best. But they were lost. Where is this? Where is that? I watched from the hall as amandas ekg flat lined and the team scrambled to help. She came back, but she is not the same with all the brain damage. No I cant blame it all on the strike. I know that. But in my heart, I know that "things" could have been done faster better by the staff that were outside making their demands known. That was 21 years ago. It is the first time that I have said anything about watching my daughter die and come back. My hands are shaking. My throat hurts from the lump in it. Strikes suck.

I'm so very sorry about your daughter. I hear your angst and sadness as you endure a life time of pain. As a nurse who cares very much about professional nursing practice and patient advocacy, I'm angry you've suffered because of a hospital system that is apparently escaping accountability (in your eyes) for creating the working conditions that led to the strike. John Greenleaf Whittier said it best, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been'."

Please don't misplace your blame on the nurses who felt compelled to strike. A strike is a last resort, voted on and supported by the overwhelming majority of the nurses in a facility. Nurses have a duty to protest unsafe conditions and take their advocacy to the streets in order to alert the public when their concerns fall on deaf ears. The hospital had plenty of notice and opportunity to correct the unsafe conditions that caused nurses to strike. Often the management's bottom line budgets take priority over the needs of patients for safe staffing. If the nurses are on the outside, there's something very wrong on the inside, and the public has a right to know.

Hospitals and nursing management are responsible for validating the competency and orienting all the nurses that they employ. Nursing managers are supposed to be competent to provide for the care of the patients in each unit that the supervise; otherwise they are not competent to supervise and evaluate the care being provided. The scabs hired by the hospital should have had the competency needed to intervene in a timely manner, but you could be right. You probably trusted the hospital to do the right thing, however hospitals cut corners, skimp on staffing and orientation programs in order to maximize their profits, which often comes at the expense of patients like your daughter. Did you involve an attorney or a regulatory agency, like the Department of Public Health?

This may not help your daughter recover but it could help prevent other tragedy. Check to see if your legislature is going to support and pass minimum, safe nurse-to- patient ratios, including a mandate for hospital management to "staff up" based on the acuity of the patients, with an appropriate consideration for the experience of the staff and the sophistication of care/technology.

California Nurses Association nurses successfully passed the first in the nation, nurse to patient ratios, despite heavy resistance from the hospital associations. Several other states who have nurses affiliated with the CNA/National Nurses Organizing Committee have introduced ratio legislation.

http://www.calnurses.org/nursing-practice/ratios/ratios_index.html

http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/

The hospital associations and the executive nurses were against it; the direct care, bedside nurses were for it, because it was in the exclusive interests of their patients!

If nurses can do their job well, and management creates the environment where nursing practice can succeed in providing safe, therapeutic, and effective care, then most strikes can be avoided.:)

embarrasingfield · Jul 17, 2008

"" the hospital had plenty of notice and opportunity to correct the unsafe conditions that caused nurses to strike. often the management's bottom line budgets take priority over the needs of patients for safe staffing. if the nurses are on the outside, there's something very wrong on the inside, and the public has a right to know.""

i love this last sentence, it says it all. :up:

kjetski · Jul 18, 2008

I am not really sure why you are posting on this site. I understand that you have many stressors and have been dealt what you feel is an unfair hand in life.
Nurses strike because there are problems with the system. Striking has been one of the few ways that nurses have been able to force facilities to act in a responsible manner and improve the conditions of the hospital that relate to patient safey.
This forum is really not the place for you to work through your issues. This forum deals with many things that nurses encounter on a daily basis. Many of the things that occur on this forum would be misconstrued by the general public. I recommend that you find a counselor to help you deal with your grief in an appropriate manner.

Bollix, or so the phrase goes. The OP is entitled to an opinion, which I do not happen to share. The OP sounds like a Kipper, and that explains a lot.

Atheos · Jul 18, 2008

Hmmm... What's a kipper?

Iam46yearsold · Sep 27, 2008

Nurses should never strike. My belief is that nurses are and should be above cheap theatrical,political, unionized striking ploys. Strikes truly never solve anything. All the great advances in nursing as a profession would have come about with or without strikes. Simply because the world itself is changing.

bossynurse101 · Sep 27, 2008

Hmmm... What's a kipper?

Sigh. So glad you asked it, I wasnt sure if it was a dumb question . . . answers anyone?

RN4MERCY · Sep 27, 2008

Nurses should never strike. My belief is that nurses are and should be above cheap theatrical,political, unionized striking ploys. Strikes truly never solve anything. All the great advances in nursing as a profession would have come about with or without strikes. Simply because the world itself is changing.

Unions work! If you're not at the table, you don't have a say. Getting involved, in a democratic all RN union makes our profession stronger and protects our ability to advocate for patient safety. Nurses can obtain dignity, equity and power to change terrible working conditions that create unsafe care environments and drive nurses from the profession such as long hours, disparate pay, and health risks. Through out history, the government did little to limit these injustices, and in the United States, along with much of the industrialized world, labor movements developed that lobbied for better rights and safer conditions.

The majority of our contract fights are settled without strikes. The CEOs and executives of your hospitals have contracts, so why shouldn't the nurses? Nurses have a duty to act to change circumstances that are against the interests of their patients. If nurses are on the outside, there's something wrong on the inside. The public has a right to know. Check out some nursing history. Since the inception of the profession in the United States, nurses like Lillian Wald and Lavinia Dock walked picket lines to advocate for worker safety, child labor laws, women's suffrage, and immigrant rights.

Lavinia Dock advocated for nurses to join unions so that nurses wouldn't be accomplices in their own subordination to the male dominated heirarchy in hospitals.

Iam46yearsold · Sep 29, 2008

Unions work! If you're not at the table, you don't have a say. Getting involved, in a democratic all RN union makes our profession stronger and protects our ability to advocate for patient safety. Nurses can obtain dignity, equity and power to change terrible working conditions that create unsafe care environments and drive nurses from the profession such as long hours, disparate pay, and health risks. Through out history, the government did little to limit these injustices, and in the United States, along with much of the industrialized world, labor movements developed that lobbied for better rights and safer conditions.
The majority of our contract fights are settled without strikes. The CEOs and executives of your hospitals have contracts, so why shouldn't the nurses? Nurses have a duty to act to change circumstances that are against the interests of their patients. If nurses are on the outside, there's something wrong on the inside. The public has a right to know. Check out some nursing history. Since the inception of the profession in the United States, nurses like Lillian Wald and Lavinia Dock walked picket lines to advocate for worker safety, child labor laws, women's suffrage, and immigrant rights.
Lavinia Dock advocated for nurses to join unions so that nurses wouldn't be accomplices in their own subordination to the male dominated heirarchy in hospitals.

1 Unions are not Democratic in nature by any definition that I am aware of. And I, myself am a very very far left Democrat.

2 Whether at a table or not I always have a say.

3 Injustices, better nursing, better hospital care, all had little to do with union effort. But more as a result of consumer satisfaction and attracting and expanding new clientele, thats just good business.

4 As a woman, I have never, That is Never, been subject to the subordination of a male dominated hierarchy.

Atheos · Sep 29, 2008

1 Unions are not Democratic in nature by any definition that I am aware of. And I, myself am a very very far left Democrat.

They are as Democratic as America is... ROFL

2 Whether at a table or not I always have a say.

In a business the only say you really have is take it or leave it. Not much of a say...

3 Injustices, better nursing, better hospital care, all had little to do with union effort. But more as a result of consumer satisfaction and attracting and expanding new clientele, thats just good business.

Instead of repeating anti-union talking points you should actually read up on your history. EVERY benefit you have is a direct result of the labor movement.

4 As a woman, I have never, That is Never, been subject to the subordination of a male dominated hierarchy.

Your entire life has been subjected to a male dominated hierarchy. :) The U.S. Government is still a male dominated hierarchy. No need to start being hypocritical about it now. In fact, pretty much everything is male dominated. Is it right? No, but that is the way it is. Change it or accept it but don't let that be a lame excuse for anti-union, anti-labor, anti-worker sentiments that you may hold...

allnurses Guide · Sep 29, 2008

Do staff nurses control staffing?

If not, why not?

Direct care RNs bear the responsibility for nursing care in hospitals. How is it possible to be responsible without the authority to change conditions that are against the interests of our patients?

Do you ever have to float to a unit where you have not been oriented?

WHY?

Even worse do you have care for a patient without the necessary competency?

Why float a med-surg nurse to telemetry without ACLS?

A pediatric nurse to an adult unit?

A cardiac nurse to orthopedics?

I wouldn't go to a cardiologist for a hip problem. Or take my child to a gerentologist.

Why put up with unsafe floating?

Even if one nurse is successful in refusing unsafe assignments if another is forced to accept it the patients are still at risk.

http://www.calnurses.org/assets/pdf/nnoc_101.pdf

allnurses Guide · Sep 29, 2008

here is how nurses worked to stop child labor, improve extremely unsafe working conditions, and eventually won the vote. without the vote women were subordinate to men. taxed without representation.

lavinia lloyd dock rn, (1858-1956)
building upon her basic nursing training, lavinia lloyd dock became a pioneer in nursing literature and a social activist fighting for equality on many levels - for women, for workers, and for access to health care.
after graduating from new york's bellevue training school for nurses in 1886, dock worked as a clinical nurse and manager and became assistant superintendent at johns hopkins university school of nursing in baltimore.
in 1896, dock began a 20-year tenure at the henry street settle-ment, improving access to health care for the impoverished inhabitants of new york's lower east side.
to advance nursing education, she authored one of the first nursing textbooks, materia medica for nurses, and worked as an editor for the american journal of nursing.
as a political activist, dock planned and participated in many major women's suffrage events.
in 1917, she led suffragette demonstrators from the national women's party headquarters in washington, d.c., to the white house.
despite being arrested multiple times for her political activism, dock remained a committed and outspoken advocate of social equality, nursing education, and health care access.
http://include.nurse.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid=2006605010311

lavinia dock rn & lillian wald rn, founder of public health nursing protesting child labor and unsafe conditions in new york

lavinia dock arrested for advocating that women be considered citizens with the right to vote