When Lauren Cook heard that the new contract her union, SEIU 1021, had negotiated with San Francisco General Hospital included provisions to streamline the process of receiving bilingual pay, she was initially excited.
Two months after hundreds of nurses throughout California spent a day striking for a better labor contract and a year after negotiations started, a 3½-year agreement between Tenet Healthcare and the California Nurses Association union has been reached.
According to the American Nurses Association, one in four nurses nationwide is either verbally or physically assaulted in their career. Nurses in the metro and across the country now say violence in the workplace from patients and their families is happening every day.
Nurses across the county, including hundreds who work at local hospitals, cheered the passage of HR 1309 in the House of Representatives last week. The bill is aimed at curbing violence that occurs in the workplace for health care and social service workers.
There are fewer nurses working in hospitals across the country, including Toledo. Nearly 1,400 nurses at Bon Secours Mercy Health will retire in the next few years. Recruiting local prospects has not been easy, so officials at Mercy are now looking for new ways to bring in nurses. It's a selfless career choice, to say the least.
A new legislative proposal would essentially put nurses in charge of nursing staffing-level decisions at hospitals in New Jersey — and possibly other health care facilities — and could help resolve a debate about patient care and workforce needs that dates back at least 16 years.