The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) says 1,200 of its members employed at Tufts Medical Center in Boston walked off the job Wednesday morning, staging a one-day strike as contract negotiations have stalled.
The nurses, who make less on average than their counterparts at other Boston hospitals, have sought higher compensation and better pensions. And they have raised safety concerns over staffing practices at Tufts.
“We have been trying for months to convince Tufts management that our patients and nurses are suffering because they refuse to provide us with the resources, appropriate patient assignments, and the compensation we need to ensure quality patient care,” said union co-chair Barbara Tiller in a statement.
Across all units and floors, nurses at Tufts have been dealing with “unsafe staffing situations on a daily basis,” the union said in its statement. As a result, nurses have regularly been assigned too many patients at once, with daily calls for nurses to pick up available shifts “due to the bare-bones approach management uses to staff the hospital,” the union said.
While the nurses billed their demonstration as a one-day strike, the hospital said any nurse who did not report to work on Wednesday would be barred from returning until Monday, as National Public Radio affiliate WBUR reported.
“We needed to recruit nurses from around the country with the specific skill sets we need to care for our patients,” Tufts chief nursing officer Terry Hudson-Jinks said. “In order to get those nurses to come in for the one day we needed to have five days worth of schedules for them.”
Tufts said the 320 nurses would fill-in with 12-hour shifts to cover for the striking union members—a plan that was reviewed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, WBUR reported.
Staff nurses tried to return to work Thursday morning, but they were barred from doing so. Tufts spokesperson Rhonda Mann said the attempted return was merely "a stunt orchestrated for the media," CBS Boston reported.
"The union was aware—well before it issued a strike notice—that a strike would force us to bring in expert nurses for a contractually-required five day period. We communicated this to our nurses through emails, meetings and letters sent to their homes," Mann said. "Nurses who came to work today may continue to work during the five day period. Those who chose not to work today know they can return Monday. If the MNA was so concerned about our nurses returning to the bedside, it should never have taken them out on strike and away from their patients.”
More than two years after quitting his job as a house physician at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center in New York City, Henry Bello, MD, returned last week with a rifle hidden under his white lab coat. The disgruntled former employee used the weapon to kill one doctor and injure six other people before ending his own life.
Bello, 45, had worked for the hospital just six months until his forced resignation in 2015 amid an allegation of sexual harassment, The New York Times reported. Even so, hospital administrators said they saw no indication that Bello would come back to the facility and open fire. “There was no warning whatsoever that he would return or that he would ever take this kind of action,” Bronx-Lebanon spokesman Errol Schneer said the morning after the attack, ABC News reported.
Some former colleagues received angry emails from Bello following his resignation, CBS News reported. The messages reportedly went so far as to state that Bello would come back to kill his former coworkers; however, the hospital said it had been notified of no such threats.
Despite a troubled past that included four arrests, Bello managed to pass at least three background checks, including two for employment and one to legally purchase the weapon he used in last week's rampage. Less than two weeks before the shooting, Bello had legally purchased a semiautomatic AM-15 in Schenectady, New York, passing a federal background check and complying with the state’s strict gun control laws, the Timesreported.
The federal background check determines whether a given person falls into any of nine categories of people who are prohibited from owning firearms: felons, immigrants without legal permission to be in the United States, those actively using drugs, former military service members who were dishonorably discharged, people with protection orders in family disputes, and those with misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence. Bello’s misdemeanor criminal record would not have placed him in any of those nine categories.
In 2003, Bello was arrested for burglary and fare beating. In 2004, he was arrested and charged with sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment after a woman accused him of grabbing her by her genitals on a Manhattan street, lifting her in the air, and trying to drag her away while saying something to the effect of “You’re coming with me,” the Times reported. The felony sexual abuse charge was dismissed when Bello pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to community service.
In 2009, Bello was arrested on a charge of unlawful surveillance after two women accused him of looking up their skirts with a mirror, NBC News reported. The case was later sealed.
The hospital was not aware of Bello’s criminal record when he was hired in 2014, despite running a background check, the Times reported.
“At that time, and as a result of a human resources and security department background check, which includes fingerprinting, there was no record of any conviction for sexual abuse,” Schneer said.
Bello’s title as a house physician meant that he could treat patients and prescribe medication only if other doctors were looking over his shoulder, Schneer noted. Bello, who had been using a limited permit to practice medicine, spent stints living at a homeless shelter, a transitional housing facility, and in a private apartment with the help of a public housing subsidy in recent years.
Bello passed another background check and was hired last September by the city government as a case worker with the Human Resources Administration to assist patients living with HIV/AIDS, NBC News reported. Bello quit coming to work in April, however, citing personal problems. He was officially fired June 21—nine days before the attack.