Sutter Targeting RNs For Harassment, Nurses Say - Alta Bates Summit Memo Symbolizes Campaign To Penalize RNs For Patient Advocacy
The latest example is a memo circulated by Alta Bates Summit Medical Center's Chief Nursing Officer Viki Ardito directing unit managers to single out RN staff who have the "worst attitudes" for discipline, up to termination.
Ardito's memo coincides with the targeting of RNs at other Sutter facilities, especially Sutter Novato and California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, said CNA/NNOC. Alta Bates Summit has facilities in Berkeley and Oakland.
Added together, the "unwarranted, disgraceful acts represent a coordinated campaign of intimidation and retaliation by the top leadership of Sutter Health which wants to blunt the ability of its RNs to advocate for their patients and themselves," said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.
In her late November memo, obtained by CNA/NNOC late last week, Ardito directed managers in every unit to identify "three of your staff that have the worst attitudes with their patients/their peers (you all know who they are)."
The pretext was "inconsistency" with hospital goals for its superficial patient satisfaction survey. Ardito instructed her managers to develop a plan to guarantee "their behaviors have changed" and if not move to disciplinary actions "until either the goals are met or the employee is no longer with the medical center."
In the organization's initial response, DeMoro called on Sutter CEO Pat Fry to immediately halt the plan and meet with CNA/NNOC over the threat.
DeMoro's letter (available upon request) blasts the "deliberate interference with the independent professional responsibilities" of direct care RNs. She also notes that Sutter's patient satisfaction measurement "bears no direct, meaningful or objective relation to safe, therapeutic, or quality nursing care" and is a "vehicle for manipulation of patient attitudes to serve purely commercial purposes."
"Sutter Health will reach a new low in RN/Nursing Service relations" if the Ardito plan is implemented, DeMoro warned. "It is little wonder that the highest level of direct care RN dissatisfaction with nursing practice conditions occur at Sutter facilities."
Similarly, at Novato, a number of RNs have been in recent weeks been disciplined for a variety of trumped up charges, such as not answering a unit phone.
Patient care conditions and Sutter's disrespect of its RN staff are, of course, at the center of the RNs' dispute with the corporate hospital chain.
Registered nurses at 13 Bay Area Sutter Health hospitals will hold their second two-day strike Thursday, Dec. 13 and Friday, Dec. 14 CNA/NNOC announced Friday.
Among the many problems in Sutter facilities are the hospital chains refusal to:
- Assure adherence with safe RN staffing ratios during RN meals and breaks, forcing RNs to jeopardize patients if they take breaks.
- Failure to maintain safe lift practices to reduce serious RN back injuries and patient falls and accidents. Genel Morgan, RN said this week that a quarter of the nurses in her intensive care unit at Peninsula Medical Center have been injured in the last year lifting, turning, handling, or moving patients. In the November Journal of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, a Seattle safety consultant noted that "protecting the health and safety of nurses" is a critical contribution "to protecting patients."
- Failure to respond to CNA/NNOC proposals for enhanced staffing in emergency rooms and establishment of hospital rapid response teams for increased response time for life-threatening patient emergencies.
- Refusal to guarantee that patients will only be assigned to an RN
Sutter, Morgan said, "needs to address the patient care and patient and nurse safety issues which are very serious to the nurses."
In addition to Alta Bates Summit, Novato, California Pacific, and Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and San Mateo, the strike will affect San Leandro Hospital, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, Sutter Delta in Antioch, Sutter Solano in Vallejo, St. Luke's hospital in San Francisco, Sutter Santa Rosa, and Sutter Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, as well as members of the CNA/NNOC-affiliated Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union, representing respiratory, X-ray, and other technical workers at Alta Bates Summit.
California Nurses Association
Sutter de orientare RNs Pentru Hãrþuirea, Asistentele Spune - Alta Bates Memo simbolizeaza Summit-ul de campanie pentru a penaliza RNs Pentru pacientului Advocacy - Sutter Targeting RNs For Harassment, Nurses Say - Alta Bates Summit Memo Symbolizes Campaign To Penalize RNs For Patient Advocacy - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate