Nearly 100 Asheville nurses rallied outside Mission Hospital on Wednesday morning, less than a month before the renegotiation of their contract with HCA-owned Mission Health .
With the backing of their union , the National Nurses Organizing Committee ( NNOC ), nurses at the hospital are seeking to draw attention to what they see as severe problems with their expiring 2020 contract.
The rally comes at a time when HCA, owner of Mission Hospital parent company Mission Health, faces increased pressure over its oversight of health facilities in Western North Carolina, including federal regulatory actions and lawsuits from local governments and the state Department of Justice, plus the recent state selection of a competing company to launch a new hospital in the Asheville suburb of Weaverville .
Elle Kruta , a case manager in Mission Health’s Women’s and Children’s ward, told Carolina Public Press that the nurses’ current contract falls short in three major areas.
The first of these is nurse-to-patient ratios, or “safe staffing” protocols, in place to guarantee both the standard of care for patients and the well-being of their providers.
In the intensive care unit (ICU), for example, nurses are asking for no more than two patients to every nurse. This is the law in ICUs in California and New York, though there is currently no national standard. National Nurses United, of which NNOC is a part, is a co-sponsor of a bill currently before Congress to enact a federal 1:2 ratio.
The second major issue with the contract relates to what nurses describe as increasing instances of workplace violence they face in Asheville. According to a spokesperson from NNOC, this violence is generally perpetrated by patients and their families.
Rather than criminalize patient behavior, nurses are asking HCA to include preventative policies in the contract itself. Nurses are asking the hospitals to promise to make plans to address nurse safety, from making sure weapons stay out of the hospital to reviewing unit layout plans to identify and mitigate isolated, high-risk areas.
“We had nurses that had been punched, that had been bit, we had nurses that were strangled, pushed up against a wall, pushed into an elevator,” Kruta said. “We need a safe place to work. And we need a safe place for patients to come to. We don’t want to keep hearing that, ‘Oh, it’s just part of your job.’”
Reducing workplace violence ultimately circles back to the staffing situation, the NNOC spokesperson said. Patients who are already in an emotionally fragile state may react impulsively and erratically when faced with the frustration of not being able to find a nurse.
What the union identifies as the the obvious solution — hiring more nurses — is not one that appeals to budget-conscious hospital management.
The third area of concern is salary.
“We are asking for a fair cost-of-living wage that would allow nurses to be able to live in Asheville,” instead of outside city limits, Kruta said.
Mission’s current offer is a 3% salary increase over three years. “None of that is keeping up with (Asheville’s) cost of living,” Kruta said.
“Nurses are an important part of our care team and we remain committed to reaching a contract agreement that is fair and equitable and allows us to continue to provide the excellent care our community deserves,” said Nancy Lindell , Director of HCA’s North Carolina Public Relations.
But HCA had less sympathy for the political dimension of Wednesday’s rally: the union announced their official endorsement of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, state Attorney General Josh Stein , who is currently suing HCA for allegedly breaching stipulations of its Mission Health purchase agreement.
“It is disappointing that gubernatorial candidate Stein would use the union rally as a campaign stop,” Lindell said. Stein was in attendance at the rally Wednesday morning, where Mission RNs Hannah Drummond and Mark Klein made speeches.
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