Lack of Adequate Staff and Equipment and a New Policy of Accepting Patients Regardless of Resources to Care for Them Is Jeopardizing the Safety of Patients Every Day
When:
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Where:
Outside the entrance to the hospital at 750 Washington St., Boston
What:
The In the wake of chronic understaffing and oftentimes unsafe patient care conditions, the registered nurses of New England Medical Center (NEMC) plan to demonstrate outside the entrance to the facility on June 27, 2007 from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. The RNs are protesting the hospital’s failure to respond to repeated requests for additional staff and equipment that nurses need to keep patients safe. “We are reaching out at this time because we are concerned for our patients. Nurses go to work with the fear that an unnecessary patient death or injury will take place under the current staffing conditions. We hope to spur the hospital into making immediate improvements. We do not want a tragedy to be the event that gets their attention,” said Nancy Gilman, RN, co-chair of the nurses bargaining unit and an intensive care unit nurse at the hospital. The protest by the nurses, who are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, comes at time when the hospital has been engaged in a concerted effort to boost its profit margin by admitting patients despite the lack of staff and resources to adequately care for them. At the same time an aggressive campaign by the hospital to expand into suburban communities has drawn resources away from patient care. Maintaining appropriate staffing levels is a constant struggle at the facility which is requiring nurses to work overtime to fill gaps in the schedule and is also causing nurses on a number of units to take on excessive patient assignments. In the last few months alone, nurses have filed more than 90 official reports of unsafe staffing conditions at the facility, conditions nurses say compromise their ability to deliver the care their patients deserved. The nurses’ demonstration is unique in that it is not connected to the negotiation of a new union contract– their contract was negotiated months ago. This effort is solely focused on their concerns for the safety of their patients and their ability to deliver the care their patients deserve. job.
Contact:
Nancy Gilman, RN: (617) 739-0850
Cathy Proctor, RN: (781) 293-5670
David Schildmeier: (781) 249-0430
