MEDIA ADVISORY: Berkshire Medical Center Nurses To Hold an Informational Picket on Dec. 10 to Protest Unsafe Staffing, Excessive Patient Assignments, says MNA/NNU
While the hospital has seen a 20% increase in census following the closing of North Adams Regional Hospital, there has been no increase in staffing to meet the increased demand for care.
When: Wednesday, December 10 from 2 - 5 p.m.
Where: Berkshire Medical Center, 721 North Street, Pittsfield, Mass.
PITTSFIELD, Mass., Dec. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The registered nurses of Berkshire Medical Center will conduct picketing outside the facility from 2 – 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 10 to protest what they believe are dangerous staffing levels, excessive patient assignments for nurses and other health care workers and a punitive work environment that is compromising the quality and safety of patient care for patients they serve throughout Berkshire County.
The action comes as nurses report a marked deterioration in patient care conditions in recent months driven by the hospital's refusal to increase staffing to account for a dramatic increase in patient census following the sudden and illegal closure of North Adams Regional Hospital. At meetings with the nurses' union leadership, hospital management has confirmed at least a 20 percent increase in patient census across the hospital since the closing. At the same time hospital management has failed to provide the staffing levels needed for the predictable dramatic increase in patient census.
Nurses in the hospital's emergency department report being overwhelmed with patients who are waiting longer for needed care and attention, and the inability to move patients through the system due to the lack of adequate staff on other units. Since the closure of North Adams Regional, the hospital has had to call a Code Full on numerous occasions, which means all beds are full and there is no place to put patients, leaving patients being held in hallways waiting for a bed to open.
To compensate for the lack of appropriate RN staffing to meet the increased demand, the hospital is utilizing questionable strategies to deliver care. In many cases, nurses have seen their patient assignments increased, forcing nurses to take on extra patients at a time when the medical research clearly shows that when nurses take on too many patients at one time, the risk of complications and even death increases dramatically. The hospital is also utilizing unsafe "floating" of nurses, a process that involves moving nurses from unit to unit. At BMC, when nurses are shuffled from unit to unit, there is no continuity of care, and no guarantee that the nurse caring for a particular patient is fully competent to provide the level of care the patient requires.
The degradation of patient care at BMC is coming at time when the residents of Northern Berkshire County continue to have no access to inpatient care in their community, while the hospital continues to make a healthy profit, posting profits of more than $95 million over the last three years.
For more information or to schedule an interview with one of the BMC nurses prior to the picket, contact David Schildmeier at 781-249-0430 or [email protected].
Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest professional health care organization and 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. The MNA is a founding member of National Nurses United, the largest national nurses' union in the United States with more than 170,000 members from coast to coast.
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SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United
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