Nevada Nurses Locked Out
Posted by on December 5, 2006 at 02:30 PM
Nurses working to negotiate lower staffing ratios so they can provide better care for their patients were locked out of local hospitals and replacements were brought in when contract negotiations failed in Nevada.
This is a fight about the quality of care the nurses are able to deliver under the current system, and the desire of the nurses to lower the nurse-to-patient ratio in order to provide better care.
From a local paper, via Taylor Marsh, who has some additional interviews up on her site that are worth checking out.
Hundreds of nurses are off the job at Valley and Desert Springs hospitals today. They've hit the picket line after negotiations between the nurses union and the hospital went stale over the weekend.
The Service Employees International Union members and the hospitals aren't fighting over money, but rather union access and what the nurses describe as sub-standard staffing.
Joined by a beefed up security presence, more than 1000 Valley Hospital employees gathered together outside the front entrance at 6 a.m., a time on any other day the union nurses would be starting their shift.
Donna West, a Valley Hospital nurse, said, "The nurses in this hospital are taking care of too many patients at one time."
The nurses union spent the weekend meeting with hospital officials to try to come to an agreement. But with neither party able to come to terms on the staffing issues at hand, the nurses hope Monday's strike sends a message.
Karen Kinimaka, Valley Hospital ICU nurse, said, "We're trying to get better staffing ratios. That's what we're here for. We're trying to take care of our patients."
In the meantime, local officials are trying to bring both sides together to agree to a "cooling off period", the hospital has brought in a bunch of "stand in" nurses from other parts of the country and the locked out nurses are hoping to bring this to a swift conclusion so they can get back to caring for their patients.
Comments - 4 »
Comments - 4 «
Posted by pee-wee on December 5, 2006 at 04:32 PM
Come to Florida if Nevada keeps screwing you around. They can make more money working "Agency" here with the huge retirement population.
Posted by J on December 5, 2006 at 07:50 PM
we should all applaud these nurses and the service employees international union- let's hope that the citizens of their community support them as well- it would be hard to imagine that anyone who has spent time themselves in a hospital or had a family member or friend in the hospital who wouldn't support their cause, for as anyone who has had this experience in recent years knows, there are not enough nurses on duty at most, if not all, hospitals in this country-
i and my family have had several first hand experiences with this to know well enough that you'd better be sure to have someone stationed in that room at all times to be sure that your loved one gets the right response when something goes wrong or they are just not being cared for properly- we've seen the buzzers go off telling us that something in an iv wasn't working properly and then spent quite a while on at least one occasion trying to rouse nursing staff to do something about it- i have seen this enough to know that it is epidemic in this country
americans must wake up and renounce the free-market corporate line of crap that has made such a muck of so many things in this country- part of taking the country back begins with these nurses standing up for themselves and their patients against the free-market ideology that too often cares for nothing but the principle of greed over what is supposed to be a caring industry- quality care indeed
Posted by queencityjefro on December 5, 2006 at 07:51 PM
Funny the media didn't cover this story. Isn't it funny, or pathetic, that the Main Stream Media NEVER covers workers' issues or union stands?
Programs on corporate-controlled media, like NBC and MSNBC, would rather MISDIRECT public attention about 2008 races, and dream up democratic divisions, than cover stories about Democrats standing for workers' rights NOW in 2006.
We must make the media accountable for this mischievious misdirection, and irresponsible reporting on current sociatal stories. Maybe Unions need to work harder to spead the word too?
We ALL need to demand responsible reporting.
WWW.MEDIAMATTERS.ORG
Posted by Power_of_Equality on December 6, 2006 at 02:13 AM
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