As the nurse’s strike at Saint Vincent Hospital reached 200 days on Thursday, the hospital said it has hired more than 200 permanent replacement nurses.
A spokesperson for the hospital said it reached 200 permanent replacement nurses on Wednesday and a day later the total increased to 203. In total, the hospital has 330 nurses who are working or soon to be working at the bedside of patients.
The work stoppage continues despite Tenet Healthcare, the Dallas-based parent company of Saint Vincent Hospital, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association agreeing on staffing, which originally sparked the strike on March 8.
Instead, a return-to-work provision is preventing a resolution.
Tenet has said that every striking nurse is guaranteed to have a position at the hospital when the work stoppage ends, however, it may not be the exact position they previously held. The MNA said it’s normal operating procedure to allow striking workers to return to their positions. Tenet agreed but said this strike isn’t normal.
The work stoppage, which reached 200 days on Thursday, is the longest nurses’ strike in the history of Massachusetts as it approaches seven months.
At the end of August, Tenet said about 85% of the nurses would return to their exact position and shift.
“For the remaining 15%, we have committed to work with the MNA to try and resolve these situations once a return to work agreement is in place,” Tenet said.
However, as time passes and more replacement nurses are hired, Tenet said that percentage would shrink. Five months into the strike, Saint Vincent Hospital announced it hired 100 permanent replacement nurses. The hospital hired 103 more in the last six weeks.
Saint Vincent Hospital said its attorney reached out to the MNA on Aug. 20 and Sept. 7 about a return-to-work compromise, but hasn’t heard back. The MNA denied that an attorney ever reached out and said it will not budge on the agreement.
On Friday, a hospital spokesperson said they couldn’t provide an up-to-date percentage because the hospital is unsure how many nurses plan to return.
When the strike began, about 800 nurses joined the work stoppage. Saint Vincent Hospital said at most 625 remain out of work, but the MNA hasn’t provided them with an exact number.
The MNA told MassLive that nearly 700 nurses remain on strike.
“No matter how many so called permanent replacement nurses Tenet claims to have hired, we have made it clear that our nurses cannot and will not return to work unless and until they all are guaranteed their same position, and it is important that the public understands why we are taking this position,” Marlena Pellegrino a registered nurse at the hospital and co-chair of the local MNA bargaining unit said in a statement. It is because Tenet’s replacement plan is irresponsible, punitive to the nurses and, most important of all, places every patient who enters that hospital in danger.”
The MNA claims that replacement nurses at the hospital are put in situations they are not experienced to perform, filling the roles of people with decades of knowledge.
Meanwhile, Saint Vincent said the replacement nurses consist of 32% with less than 5 years, 33% with six to 20 years of experience and 35% with at least 21 years of experience.
A recent surge in COVID-19 cases in the city and a lack of ICU beds has renewed calls from outside the hospital for both sides to reach a resolution.
Last week, CEO of UMass Memorial Health Eric Dickson called the bed shortage a “crisis situation,” saying that between 80 and 100 beds are offline because of the strike.
ICU beds at UMass Memorial Health continue to be at capacity, a spokesperson for the hospital said. As of Thursday, only three of 20 beds were vacant at Saint Vincent Hospital.
“The nurses also want the public to be aware of who is behind the crisis in care during this new surge in the pandemic,” Pellegrino said. “As we have repeatedly stated, we were ready and are ready to return to caring for patients as soon as possible, but it is Tenet and Carolyn Jackson who has blocked our return by engaging in these illegal attacks on our members, and proposing a return to work agreement that would make conditions worse than we experienced prior to the strike.”
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- Nurse’s strike at Saint Vincent Hospital is creating a ‘crisis situation’ in Worcester, keeping as many as 100 beds offline
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