Despite its name, Women and Infants Hospital is treating more men. Nurses are concerned.

Rhode Islanders tend to think of Women & Infants Hospital as the place where babies are born. After all, it's right there in the name.

But a growing number of patients are men and children, according to the union that represents nurses and other hospital staffers. That's not necessarily a problem, workers said at an informational picket this week, but they want more training and more communication about the shift than they see happening.

"A lot of our members are saying that they just want to be part of the conversation," said Heather Kelley, an elected organizer with SEIU 1199 New England. "If there are going to be changes, we don’t want to find out on a billboard."

Has the patient population really changed?

Under federal law , Women & Infants has to treat anyone that walks through its doors, according to Doreen Scanlon Gavigan, public relations manager for Care New England, which owns the hospital.

"That’s nothing new," she said. "It’s something we’ve been doing for a long time."

However, she acknowledged, the emergency department recently expanded its "care offerings" and can now treat more conditions.

"In that way, we have opened our doors to whom we can treat," she said. "It’s more than just pregnant people."

In the past , men and children who came to the emergency room would be stabilized, then transferred to Rhode Island Hospital or Hasbro Children's Hospital, said Tonya Tyler, a registered nurse.

Now, they're actually being treated at Women & Infants.

Kelley said one union member was surprised when her husband told her he was going to Women & Infants for diagnostic imaging, jokingly telling him, "We don't treat your kind."

"Yeah, you do," her husband responded, telling her that he'd been referred there by his doctor.

Additionally, Kelley said, billboards are now advertising the hospital's emergency room.

"It doesn't specifically say 'Come if you’re a man,' but that's what they’re communicating," she said.

Care New England says that the hospital's priorities haven't changed.

"Women & Infants focuses on providing care to women and infants," Raina Smith, senior director for public relations, wrote in an email. "Nothing has changed."

Why nurses are raising concerns

Adriana Chartier, a registered nurse, emphasized that staffers don't object to treating men and children on principle.

"We will take anybody in the community, we’re happy to do it, it’s just that we want to do it in the safest way," she said.

That means more training, she said, noting that some nurses have been at Women & Infants for 30 years and exclusively cared for women and infants that whole time.

"Not for nothing, I can put a Foley [catheter] in any mom," Tyler said. "I can’t tell you the last time I had to do care on a man."

Chartier said she's witnessed a "domino effect": Nurses on the labor and delivery unit, where she works, are being asked to help out in the emergency room because it has a higher volume of patients and more staff turnover.

They're happy to do so, Chartier said, "but the issue is that we're unfamiliar with the unit."

Workers are asking for an "orientation phase" to learn where key medications, equipments and rooms, she said, but have only been given the opportunity to shadow emergency staff for one shift – unpaid, and on their own time.

The issue boils down to a need for more communication, Kelley said: "What are the plans, who are we treating, what are we changing, and how can we have space to bring up our concerns?"

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Despite its name, Women and Infants Hospital is treating more men. Nurses are concerned.