General Hospital RNs hold downtown rally

WILKES-BARRE – Some carried signs saying, “ER Nurses your first line of defense.” Some wore signs reading, “Tell CHS: Patients before profits” or “Help nurses – Advocates for patients.”

About 150 nurses, their families and friends turned out for a rally organized by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals on Public Square on Saturday afternoon to support the 450-member nursing staff at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital. The union is in contract talks with the hospital’s new owner, Community Health Systems, a for-profit health care company.

The unionized nurses are worried about health insurance expenses, overtime compensation and safe staffing levels.

Under the CHS proposal, nurses would be required to use only CHS facilities or pay 10 percent of the total bill for co-payments for any services provided outside of CHS, Association Executive Director Bill Cruice said.

“There are some services that CHS doesn’t provide, so this could potentially run into thousands of dollars that nurses and their families might have to pay to health expenses,” he said, adding the co-pay would be capped at a maximum of $8,000.

Lynn Evans-Frame, of Hanover Township, has worked at the hospital for two years as a registered nurse in the obstetrics department.

One reason she entered the health care field, she said, was to provide quality health care benefits for her children. Now she finds the increased co-payment amounts depressing.

“I have two children and if by chance they need any services outside the area, I would really have to think about whether or not I could provide those services because I could not afford a 10 percent co-pay on those outside services,” Evans-Frame said.

Another issue important to the nurses is staffing levels. Cruice pointed out that statistics show patients can receive higher quality care when nurses are only responsible for up to five patients per shift.

Some nightshift nurses are taking care of up to 10 to 12 patients per shift, said registered nurse Jacquie Chervenitski, secretary of the Wyoming Valley Nurse Association.

Evening-shift nurses often care for seven patients each and dayshift nurses sometimes care for up to eight patients during their shift, she said.

Cruice hopes to gain 19,000 more signatures to its petition for a total of 20,000. It will be delivered to the CHS corporate office in Tennessee by a delegation of nurses.