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WILKES-BARRE — Ahead of the next round of contract talks, the union representing nurses at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital will hold a public forum on its concerns about staffing and the effects on patient care.
The Wyoming Valley Nurses Association will present “The State of Our NEPA Hospitals” from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday in the Luzerne County Courthouse rotunda.
The WVNA — a union local of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals — is set to hold another bargaining session Jan. 16 with hospital owner Commonwealth Health Systems.
Publicly traded CHS, based in Tennessee, is one of the largest for-profit hospital companies in the country. But CHS has struggled financially and has been selling hospitals to reduce its debt load.
The union, which represents more than 400 registered nurses at WBGH, has alleged the hospital owner places profits above patients, earning $11 million between 2015 and 2017 while allowing the acute-care facility to be understaffed.
“Across northeast Pennsylvania, nurses negotiate with these enormous hospital corporations who have not yet agreed to or successfully implemented changes to nurse staffing to the levels that we believe are necessary. We want the public to know where we stand and we hope you’ll join us,” Elaine Weale, a registered nurse at WBGH and union president, said Thursday in a statement.
The last scheduled session between the union and CHS was Dec. 13. On Dec. 11, the nurses voted to authorize their bargaining unit to send a 10-day strike notice at its discretion to Community Health Systems.
“The main issue in our contract negotiations is to improve nurse staffing at the hospital so that we can provide care to our patients, the type of care these patients deserve and the care we’re committed to providing,” Weale said at a rally before the authorization vote in December.
Hospital responds
Hospital spokeswoman Renita Fennick said in a prepared statement: “Negotiations are continuing under the auspices of the Federal Mediations and Conciliation Service. We are fully committed to the collective bargaining process and remain focused on productive negotiations.”
The WVNA held a one-day strike in May 2018 after the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry issued citations for illegal use of mandatory overtime. The hospital locked out the union for four additional days. Temporary replacement workers were hired to fill in during the five-day period.
Then in September, the state Department of Health conducted a surprise inspection based on documentation of staffing concerns submitted by the union. In its own report entitled “The State of Our Hospital,” the union highlighted the findings in the state’s review.
Among them was that 81 of the 148 shifts on Sept. 11 “did not meet their adopted staffing grid for RNs and/or nurse’s aides or unit secretaries.”
Additionally, the investigation tied understaffing to self-inflicted injuries suffered by patients admitted as suicide risks and with behavioral orders.
One of the patients required one-on-one direct observation, but a bedside sitter was not available “due to lack of staffing.” The patient, who was placed in restraints, “was able to strangle self with gown strings” and went unresponsive. The patient was revived with oxygen.
Another patient concealed a razor blade in their mouth that was not detected upon admission. Later, multiple lacerations were found on the arms and front of the neck that required sutures and “steri-strips” to close.
Interviews with hospital employees revealed a metal detector that scans the entire body was in storage and not used due to lack of staff in the security department. Instead, security employed a hand-held scanner on the patient, but did not wand the patient’s head.
The patient’s injuries were discovered at 4:45 p.m. Aug. 11, 2018. But it was not until the hospital received a call from the patient’s friend at 8:30 p.m. that the patient was found with the blade.
The state review of hospital records revealed “this patient was cooperative with a mouth search; handed ED staff a razor blade from the mouth and that (the patient) indicated this patient keeps it there all the time.”