Chicago Nurses Kick off National Nurses Week with Safe Staffing Drive

by Mike Hall, May 9, 2006

Around the country, fewer nurses are taking care of more patients as hospitals—looking for bigger profits—cut staff, and patient care is suffering while more nurses are being hurt on the job.

Kicking off National Nurses Week, May 8, nurses at Resurrection Health Care—an eight-hospital and multiclinic system in the Chicago area—and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) tried to deliver a petition to hospital CEO Joseph Toomey urging the health care system adopt safe nurse staffing ratios for better patient care but were turned away by security guards.

The nurses are among the 8,000 Resurrection workers who are fighting to win a voice at work with AFSCME Council 31, but the Catholic-run hospital has met them with a vicious anti-union campaign, including firing several workers who the union says lost their jobs for backing the union.

Schakowsky’s bill would establish enforceable, safe staffing ratios. Says Schakowsky:

When too few nurses care for too many patients, the results can be devastating. Research shows that more RNs at the bedside, results in shorter, safer hospital stays and saves money.

Jo Patton, AFSCME Council 31 special projects director, says nurses at Resurrection have mobilized around the staffing issues because “resources at their hospitals have been shifted away from the bedside toward high administrative salaries, cosmetic improvements and corporate expansion.”

Says Resurrection RN Lee Moarn:

By endorsing these standards, Resurrection can lead the way to better working conditions for nurses and better health care for patients.

AFSCME released a report last winter saying Resurrection is placing more emphasis on corporate growth and profits than quality care for patients. The report, based on interviews with nurses throughout the Resurrection system and data from public records and quality-oversight agencies, found serious lapses in patient care, higher prices for services and inadequate staffing.

Earlier this year, workers at Resurrection received some unexpected words of encouragement from “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno. Booked for the hospital’s annual black-tie ball, Leno took time out to speak and joke with several hundred hospital workers and their supporters protesting outside the dinner who were calling on Resurrection to respect the workers’ rights to form a union.

Visit the United American Nurses website to learn more about the staffing crisis in the nation’s hospitals.

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