Massachusetts Nurse :: October 2005

Beth Piknick Elected President of Massachusetts Nurses Association

Beth Piknick, RN, a resident of Hyannis and a staff nurse at Cape Cod Hospital (CCH), has been elected president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. The MNA, with more than 23,000 members, is the largest professional association of registered nurses and health care professionals and the largest union of registered nurses in the commonwealth.

Piknick, who is the 37th president in the MNA's 102-year history, will serve a two-year term of office. She brings with her more than 34 years experience in nursing and as many years of service to the MNA. Piknick holds a diploma in nursing from Faulkner Hospital’s School of Nursing and a BS from Lesley College.

“I am honored to have been elected to lead this powerful organization of front-line nurses,” Piknick said. “These are turbulent and challenging times for nurses, and for the patients we care for. I am proud to lead an organization that is so committed to protecting the nursing profession and advocating for patients, an organization that is leading the effort to improve the quality and safety of patient care, in whatever setting that care is delivered.”

The Ultimate Goal: RN-to-Patient Ratios
Piknick is clear that passage of legislation to mandate safe registered nurse-to-patient ratios in our health care facilities is the overriding concern of the MNA membership, as well as the communities we serve. The MNA has filed and is promoting passage of H. 2663, An Act Ensuring Patient Safety.

"When you talk about the problems confronting health care today—be it ER diversions, housing patients in hospital hallways or mandatory overtime—they all come down to one root cause: the hospital industry’s failure to provide adequate staffing,” said Piknick. “I’ve learned the true political significance of the MNA while promoting the safe staffing legislation. We are now a strong force against the hospital industry and a strong voice for our allies. We are the experts when it comes to patient care, professional practice and health care for citizens of the commonwealth. I’m looking forward to being the MNA’s spokesperson on this issue, and fighting for the quick passage of this bill.

According to MNA Executive Director Julie Pinkham, “Beth’s greatest strength is her experience in the trenches on the front-lines of health care. She has a first hand understanding of the issues nurses face every day, and has never failed to bring that experience and understanding to her work as a leader and advocate for her profession.”

Piknick has spent her entire nursing career as a front-line caregiver and staff nurse, first at Faulkner Hospital and then moving on to Cape Cod Hospital in 1972 where she worked in the ICU. She currently works in CCH’s outpatient endoscopy unit.

An active participant in the MNA, Piknick has been and continues to be extremely involved with her local bargaining unit at CCH, working hard with her co-workers to resolve numerous health care issues that impact the nurses and patients. For a number of years, Piknick was the leader of her MNA local, serving as co-chair during an historic nurses’ strike in 1981, and she continued to be actively involved in a number of successful contract negotiations. Later she gained prominence as an elected member of the MNA’s statewide union leadership body – the Cabinet for Labor Relations.

Piknick also brings a wealth of experience as a leader and spokesperson within the MNA on a variety of issues. She has sat on the organization’s Board of Directors for the last four years; she is the president of the MNA’s Region 3, which includes the Cape and Islands and many towns in southeastern Massachusetts; is an MNA representative for the American Association of Registered Nurses; and is chairperson of the Task Force on Safe Patient Handling. In the past Piknick also sat on the MNA’s Congress on Health and Safety.

Tied to the issue of Safe Patient Handling
As the chairperson of the Safe Patient Handling Task Force, Piknick is working to prevent back injuries in health care workers, the leading cause of disability for nurses and lost work time for health care employers.

Her connection to this issue is intimate, as she herself once injured her back and was out of work for almost two-and-a-half years as a result.

When she returned to work, she was employed with permanent restrictions in the employee health department of her facility. Piknick was then in a position to request a trial for various lifting devices throughout the facility. The assistant director of the department prepared a detailed account of the cost to the facility and consequently received approval to proceed with the trial. Based on staff preference of a particular lifting device, five more were purchased.

Piknick was able to bring her experiences to the MNA’s Congress on Health & Safety where she received additional feedback from other facilities and, as a result, went on to assist in the publishing of a textbook regarding the affect of back injuries on health care workers.

Currently, she is working with the Task Force on Safe Patient Handling to pass a bill entitled, “An act relating to safe patient handling in certain health facilities.” The bill, which would mandate safe-lifting practices, was filed by the MNA in early December 2004 for consideration during the 2005-2006 legislative session.

“This bill has great importance,” explained Piknick. “Its passage will mean that the onus will be on the facility to supply appropriate equipment to prevent injuries, some of which can be life altering or career-ending.”