Support Your Nurses at Cape
Cod & Falmouth Hospital
Help Us Improve the Quality of YOUR Health Care
The nurses of Cape Cod Health Care, who are currently in negotiations for a new union contract, are taking this opportunity to share our concerns about management’s refusal to provide the working conditions and resources needed to recruit and retain that first-rate nursing staff you depend on at Cape Cod and Falmouth Hospitals.
Despite posting profits of more than $30 million in the past two years, CCHC refuses to:
- Provide patients with the nursing staff required to deliver quality patient care. Registered nurses deliver 90 percent of the clinical care patients receive in the hospital and numerous studies have shown that the most important factor contributing to your health and safety during your hospital stay is access to appropriate nursing care.
- Improve staffing patterns to ensure there is a nurse at your bedside when you need one. On many floors, and on many days, the hospital is failing to meet agreed upon RN staffing standards, or they refuse to adjust staffing to meet the needs of the patients on the floor. When this happens, nurses are forced to care for too many patients at one time, which means you could receive less care and attention when you need it most.
- Limit the use of mandatory overtime as a staffing tool. Instead of using their profits to provide appropriate staff to deliver quality patient care, the hospital is using mandatory overtime, forcing nurses to work extra hours and double shifts, regardless of the impact this may have on the quality of your care. The Institute of Medicine, the nation’s foremost authority on medical practices, has stated that it is unsafe for any nurse to work beyond 12 hours. The fact is, exhausted nurses cannot provide safe care. Do you want a nurse on his or her 16th hour caring for you?
To Ensure safe patient care, the nurses are seeking:
- Enhanced staffing levels to guarantee quality patient care. Current staffing patterns were developed five years ago and do not account for significant changes that occurred with the expansion of the hospital, nor do they reflect the actual needs of our patients on these floors today.
- Safe limits on mandatory overtime. The nurses are seeking limits on the use of forced overtime as a staffing mechanism. The limits we are seeking are in place at dozens of hospitals across the state, and are in keeping with laws prohibiting mandatory overtime now in effect in more than 16 states across the country.
- A modest pay increase. While not our primary concern, it has been five years since our last general wage increase and we are seeking a wage increase averaging 70 cents per hour, which we believe is not unreasonable given the hospital’s significant increase in profits.
The nurses of Cape Cod and Falmouth Hospitals live in this community and we depend on these hospitals for our own family’s health care. Our primary goal in this process is to ensure that the patients served by Cape Cod Health Care receive the highest quality care. Please join us in convincing management to work with us to put their concern for patients ahead of their desire for profits.
Cape Cod Health Care Nurses Deserve Better
And So Do Our Patients
Please call Cape Cod Health Care CEO Mike Lauf at
508.862.5121 and tell him to be fair to those who care!
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