More than 800 people signed a petition to the Board of Directors of Mercy Medical Center demanding Trinity Health respect nurses and patients.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Registered nurses at Mercy Medical Center, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, will deliver a petition signed by more than 800 community members to Paul Mancinone, the chair of the Trinity Health of New England Board of Directors and the Mercy Medical Center trustees, on Wednesday, June 30.
The petition, created by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, reads in part, “These frontline workers deserve to have their voices heard and have a fair contract settled, and the community deserves high-quality and safe care. It is time to settle a fair contract with the nurses of Mercy Medical Center and invest in the future of our community.”
Petition Delivery Details
When: Wednesday, June 30 at 11 a.m.
Where: 1441 Main Street, downtown Springfield, MA
How: Mercy nurses and supporters will gather to address Trinity Health’s refusal to agree to a contract that respects nurses and provides them the conditions they need to safely care for patients. They will attempt to deliver the petition to Mancinone at his office.
The approximately 400 MNA nurses of Mercy Medical Center are negotiating a contract to succeed their contract that expired on December 31, 2020. Nurses held an informational picket in April and are planning a series of public actions following the petition delivery aimed at encouraging the hospital’s trustees to perform their oversight duties and ensure Mercy and Trinity Health properly support nurses in their mission to provide safe, high-quality care to the community.
“Despite our work to keep the community safe and healthy during the pandemic and beyond, Trinity executives continue to understaff the hospital, leading to unsafe working conditions,” the nurses of the MNA Bargaining Committee at Mercy Medical Center wrote in a recent letter to the hospital’s trustees. “Trinity’s bare bones staffing model leads to burnout among nurses and hurts Mercy’s mostly Black and Latinx patient population. Trinity has not worked with the nurses to address the root problems that cause or contribute to chronic understaffing and Mercy’s inability to hire and retain both nurses and other staff.” For a copy of the letter email jmarkman@mnarn.org.
Trinity Health’s failure to properly support and protect Mercy nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic and the corporation’s unilateral changes to nurses’ working conditions prompted nurses to hold informational pickets in May 2020 and August 2020. Trinity took over Mercy Medical Center in 2013 when it acquired Sisters of Providence through a merger with Catholic Health East. Based in Michigan, Trinity owns 92 hospitals nationwide and has nearly $20 billion in annual revenue. In the second half of 2020 its net income reached $2.7 billion, up from $805 million during the same period the year before.
Highlighted Issues
- Mercy nurses know their patients’ needs and are calling for safer staffing levels to ensure high-quality care at all times. Trinity increasingly floats nurses around the hospital even when they may be unfamiliar with the specific patient conditions, equipment, or procedures.
- Mercy nurses are fighting to restore time off benefits that they and their families deserve. Nurses need to be able to rest and re-charge so they can provide the best possible care for members of their community.
- Mercy nurses are seeking improved health insurance costs and a fair wage increase that will help retain and recruit nurses.
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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
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