In their third walkout, New Orleans nurses say chronic understaffing and violence in the workplace are only getting worse.
With Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” as a soundtrack, nurses at New Orleans’s University Medical Center walked off the job for the third time, picketing along the city’s Canal Street thoroughfare earlier this month.
“We will picket, shout, bargain, petition, and strike again, and again, and again until the nurses win the first contract!” Terry Mogilles, an orthopedic trauma clinic nurse, told a rapt crowd on May 1. The crowd comprised about 100 nurses and their supporters, with many of the nurses wearing scrubs or red shirts with white lettering reading “We Will Strike for Our Patients!” Mogilles and roughly 600 University Medical Center nurses voted to unionize with National Nurses United in December 2023. They are in their 16th month of union representation but say their employer is stalling on a contract that would actually improve their jobs.
Observers say nurses may be waiting even longer. On average, healthcare unions go around 17 months before obtaining first contracts. Today, the nurses not only have to overcome their employer’s resistance but also the downstream effects of the Trump administration’s policy changes.
From the bedside to the forefront, nurses are leading the way as part of the Professional Governance Group at AdventHealth.
It’s a new concept rooted in an idea that sprouted after the COVID-19 pandemic. A small panel of nurses began meeting in 2022 to address the burnout and retention issues happening in the nursing industry at that time. Now, AdventHealth has expanded the concept by adding 40 nurses to their Professional Governance Group.
Nurses at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital will rally on Tuesday to demand better staffing levels in Plattsburgh.
The New York State Nurses Association claims safe staffing thresholds have been lowered over the years as the University of Vermont Health Network faces a workforce shortage. The hospital has struggled with staff retention since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, CVPH operated at a loss of $7 million.
The rally comes as UVMMC faces widespread budget restrictions after it exceeded the revenues allowed by the Green Mountain Care Board.
Minneapolis College hosted a “pinning ceremony” for its nursing program graduates recently — a ritual that confirmed their commitment to the profession.
It included a circle of Native American drummers performing an honor song to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of four graduating class members, Native American women who plan to become nurses. Minneapolis College officials and the women themselves believe their success will draw other Native Americans into the nursing profession over time as the four nurses become role models for future generations.
An artificial intelligence based deep learning model can predict lung cancer risk using only a single low dose computed tomography scan, according to research carried out in Korea. The deep learning model, which is known as Sybil, was originally developed using National Lung Screening Trial data by investigators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has changed its process for veterans to get medical care from non-VA providers, removing a requirement that a referral to community care be reviewed by another VA doctor. The VA announced Monday that it is enacting a provision of the Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act that will help ease veterans' access to medical services from private providers.