Nurses Hold History-Making Strike at Baltimore Hospital
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by Jennifer Porter Gore, Word in Black
Nurses at Ascension St. Agnes Hospital, which serves mostly low-income patients, want better working conditions.
Overview:
Experts say the nation’s shortage of nurses comes from issues connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. But others say, poor working conditions, low pay, workloads compromise patient care are longstanding issues.
Nurses at a Baltimore hospital that treats low-income patients launched a one-day strike Thursday against the company that operates it — a dramatic move they believe can pressure the hospital into addressing years-long frustrations over unsafe staffing levels, high nurse turnover, and inadequate patient care.
The strike at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital comes during contentious, 18-month-long negotiations between Missouri-based Ascension Health and the national union that represents the nurses. This is the first time caregivers in Baltimore have walked off the job.
The nurses say poor working conditions at the hospital put them under unnecessary stress and endangers the hospital’s patients — a disproportionate number of whom are Black.
“Suboptimal” Patient Care Is Not OK
“Hospital management told us that they are OK with ‘suboptimal’ patient care when we brought this issue to the bargaining table,” Gideon Eziama, a cardiology nurse, said in a statement issued by the nurses’ union, National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United. “That is completely unacceptable, and that is why we are striking.”
Ascension Health “is continuously over-reliant on floating nurses to other units to plug the staffing holes they intentionally create,” said Eziama, referring to a management practice of sending nurses to work in unfamiliar, short-handed departments. “But the hospital is not consistently tracking nurses’ competencies and assigns us to work in units we often aren’t trained to work in.”
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