Hundreds of Massachusetts RNs to Rally for Patient Safety Outside the State House May 21
Hundreds of nurses, joined by other health care advocates and policy makers, will hold a rally outside the State House on two critically important issues affecting the health care of every resident in Massachusetts, as the deadline for legislative action draws near for two ballot initiatives that garnered more than 200,000 signatures from Massachusetts voters last fall. In addition to calling for legislative action, the nurses are using the event to launch the final round of signature gathering needed to place the issues on the ballot in November.
Massachusetts Nurses Association / National Nurses United
May 15, 2014
Hayward: St. Rose Hospital, nurses agree on contract
St. Rose Hospital has reached a contract agreement with its 300 registered nurses. The pact gives nurses a 4 percent raise over two years and ties pay increases to seniority. It also includes a workplace violence prevention program.
Mercury News
Federal Government Orders MedStar Washington Hospital Center to Provide Critical Data to Nurses
The National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency, has found that MedStar Washington Hospital Center violated federal law by refusing to provide nurses and our representatives with copies of the 2012 AHRQ Survey on Patient Safety Culture, copies of the current staffing plans for each unit, and daily deviation from the established staffing plans. Rather than work with nurses collaboratively to improve staffing and patient safety at the hospital, management claimed confidentiality and wasted thousands of dollars to wage a failing legal battle to withhold the information.
National Nurses United
St. Rose RNs, Hayward Reach Agreement on First Contract
Registered nurses at St. Rose Hospital in Hayward have reached tentative agreement with hospital officials on their first collective bargaining agreement that includes important gains on economic security, staffing and workplace violence prevent, the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United announced today. St. Rose was one of the last remaining non-union hospitals for RNs in the Bay Area – until St. Rose RNs voted by 91 percent to join CNA in December, 2012. CNA represents 300 RNs at St. Rose.
California Nurses Association
May 14, 2014
Closure of DMC would be grim
As a registered nurse who has worked for many years at Doctors Medical Center San Pablo, I'm intimately familiar with the critical need for a fully operational hospital in West Contra Costa County and the disastrous public health crisis its closure will create. As it is, West County, one of the most illness-prone regions in Northern California, doesn't have enough emergency capacity for its current population. DMC has 79 percent of the hospital beds and 60 percent of the emergency care in the region.
Contra Costa Times - Letter to the Editor
Nurses Union Lobbies Against Nonprofit Hospital Exemption
Hundreds of registered nurses lobbied lawmakers in Sacramento Monday on a package of nursing-friendly bills. The major legislative offensive from The California Nurses' Association included opposition to the income tax-exempt status of non-profit hospitals.
The California Report
Chicago Nurses Sound Alarm to Save Cook County Health and Hospital System
National Nurses United, representing 1300 registered nurses throughout the Cook County Health and Hospital System and 6000 nurses in Chicago, call on Cook County President Toni Preckwrinkle to stop her destructive plan to cut pensions. The plan will exacerbate the county's fiscal crisis and ruin the county's safety net hospital system, nurses say.
National Nurses United / NNOC
May 14, 2014
Nurses Launch New Campaign to Alert Public to Dangers of Medical Technology and More
‘When It Matters Most, Insist on a Registered Nurse! Sweeping changes underway in the nation’s health care delivery system that expose hundreds of thousands of patients to severe risk of harm are the focus of a major new national campaign by the nation’s largest organization of nurses announced today. An unchecked proliferation of unproven medical technology and sharp erosion of care standards are rapidly spreading through the health care system, far outside the media spotlight but frighteningly apparent to nurses and patients, says National Nurses United.
National Nurses United
May 13, 2014
The doctor is NOT in
The slippery slope for patients, nurses, and doctors posed by robots in healthcare. For patients needing dialysis or care for acute kidney failure, there’s a new doctor in the nephrology ward at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, Calif. Meet the doc on a stick. It’s not a scene from “Star Trek†or the latest X-box video game. And, like the smooth-sounding, but ominous “Hal†computer running the spaceship in “2001: A Space Odyssey,†those side effects might be a killer.
National Nurse Magazine
This is a hospital, not Disneyland
How nursing scripts and patient satisfaction surveys project a fantasy of care, not real care. “Hello, Mr. Smith. My name is Joanne. I am your nurse. Are you experiencing any pain today? No? That’s good. Do you need help getting to the bathroom?†(check script) “Can I fluff your pillow, bring you a magazine, turn on your TV, move your water bottle closer?†(check script) “I am so happy to be of service, this is all part of the excellent care we provide here at Happy Homes Medical Center and Resort.â€
National Nurse Magazine