RNs at Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital are outraged that management is retaliating against experienced nurses who advocate for their patients and coworkers

Registered nurses at Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson, Ariz., will gather for a rally on Friday, Feb. 27, to demand that management prioritize safe patient care standards in all hospital units. The nurses, who are represented by National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU), have been sounding the alarm about increasingly unsafe conditions at the hospital over the past three months. But management has not agreed to any of the improvements that RNs say are essential for safe patient care, such as increased RN staff or having a designated rapid-response RN for each shift. 

Last week, St. Mary’s Hospital management terminated the employment of Dominique Hamilton, an RN who has worked in the intensive care unit for eight years and is a longtime patient advocate. RNs across the hospital say her termination is unjust and retaliatory and call for Hamilton’s immediate reinstatement. 

“St. Mary’s is owned by a for-profit corporation, Tenet Healthcare, and Tenet puts profits before patients,” said Julia Marques, RN in the medical-surgical acute unit. “It’s on us as nurses to use our collective voice to speak out for our patients and demand the care for them that they deserve.” 

Who:  RNs at Carondolet St. Mary’s Hospital
What: Rally for Patient Safety
When: Friday, Feb. 27, 8:15–10 a.m.
Where: Carondolet St. Mary’s Hospital, 1601 W. St. Mary’s Hospital Rd., Tucson, Ariz. (in front of hospital)

In December, nurses approached hospital management about unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios on various units, voicing their concerns about poor patient outcomes and increased mortality rates related to increased nurse-to-patient ratios overloading nurses. RNs continued their safe staffing campaign by filling out dozens of Assignment Despite Objection forms to document unsafe patient assignments. 

Decades of studies have shown that safe staffing saves lives. A study of more than 11,000 patients over a two-year period in 75 hospitals in four states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, and California) found that “better work environments and lower patient-to-nurse ratios on medical-surgical units were associated with increased odds of survival after in-hospital cardiac arrest, even after taking into account other likely explanations.” Another study found that the odds of patient mortality increased by 7 percent for every additional patient in the average nurse’s workload in the hospital.

NNOC represents 300 registered nurses at Carondolet St. Mary’s Hospital.

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.