RNs at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin to protest unsafe conditions

Registered nurses at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, in Austin, Texas, will hold a bake sale for safe staffing tomorrow, March 18, to highlight their patient safety concerns, including chronic understaffing, unsafe patient assignments, and hospital leadership’s refusal to implement meaningful solutions to stabilize staffing, announced National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) today.

Nurses report ongoing unsafe conditions, including intensive care unit (ICU) nurses being assigned too many critically ill patients, ICU-level patients being placed in units not designed for their level of care due to ICU understaffing, and other units operating with inadequate staffing as surgical cases continue to be scheduled. Nurses say they have repeatedly raised these concerns with leadership and asked for stronger staffing incentives to help bring nurses in to cover understaffed shifts.

Hospital management claims they lack the resources to invest in safe staffing. The bake sale is the nurses’ tongue-in-cheek response to the hospital: Nurses and community members will symbolically step in and attempt to raise the funds themselves.

“Nurses should not have to hold a bake sale to get hospital leadership to invest in safe staffing,” said Taylor Critendon, RN. “We’ve been raising alarms about unsafe conditions for months, and instead of addressing the problem, leadership continues to ignore the solutions nurses have been asking for and one that ensures our patients have the best care possible in Austin.”

Who: RNs at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin
What: Bake sale for safe staffing – patient safety action
When: Wednesday, March 18, 5-8 p.m.
Where: Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, 1201 W. 38th St., Austin, Texas (outside hospital entrance)

“Our patients and our community deserve a hospital that prioritizes safe staffing,” said Monica Gonzalez, RN. “Nurses are speaking out because we see every day how short staffing puts patients and caregivers at risk.”

NNOC/NNU represents more than 1,300 registered nurses at Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin.

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.