see url:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/30/us-nurses-strike-covid-coronavirus-conditions-understaffing
see full story...Here in the UK we used to go out onto our front lawns
once a week at 7 pm and celebrate the hard and sacrificial work of NHS
staff by clapping our hands or rattling spoons on the lids of cooking
pans in thankful applause...The government and politicians thanked us
very much for our appreciation of their leadership and then gave the NHS
workers a medal and a 1% pay rise...as well as corruptly purchased ppe
equipment at the very beginning of the pandemic...C'est la vie! What
more can one expect from a government based on self service and lip
service...😉
Quote<<<
Last April people across America came out of quarantine each night to
cheer the healthcare workers fighting to save lives a the height of the
coronavirus pandemic. Sixteen months on, nurses around the US are
holding strikes and picket actions amid claims of deteriorating working
conditions and severe understaffing issues.
Matt Robinson and Bobby Bluford put on PPE before entering the Covid
isolation unit at Methodist University hospital in Memphis.
‘Heart-wrenching’: inside a hospital grappling with Delta and vaccine
hesitancy
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“Most of us felt like we went from heroes to zeroes quickly,” said
Dominique Muldoon, a nurse for more than 20 years at Saint Vincent’s
hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts.
For over four months, more than 700 nurses at the Tenet Healthcare-owned
Saint Vincent hospital have been on strike, the second longest nurses’
strike in Massachusetts’ history. The hospital has brought in
replacement workers throughout the strike and have spent more than
$30,000 a day on police coverage during the strike.
Muldoon, co-chair of the local bargaining unit, said understaffing
worsened during the pandemic, with more staffing cuts and furloughs,
while nurses worked through breaks and past scheduled shifts to try to
keep up with the demand for patient care.
“Nurses were going home at night in their cars crying,” said Muldoon.
“You’ll end up staying late or working through your break trying to fit
the workload all in, but ultimately become so frustrated, because
eventually you keep trying to overcompensate and cannot keep up with it.”
Even through coronavirus surges, Muldoon affirmed understaffing and cuts
were the “new normal” at the hospital, despite nurses going above and
beyond during an emergency situation to take care of patients.
“We’ve done our jobs long enough to know what standard we should need
for patients,” she said.
Marlena Pellegrino, a nurse at Saint Vincent hospital, said nurses and
the union tried to negotiate with the hospital administration to enact
safe staffing ratios since before the pandemic, but their concerns were
repeatedly brushed aside.
>>>End of Quote
