After a nurse was severely attacked last week at a Palm Beach County hospital, health care workers and their families came together Sunday to spotlight the urgent need for better workplace safety.
WPTV spoke with the workers to capture their concerns and the solidarity they are expressing for their colleague. Hundreds of people came together in Palm Beach County to rally for the injured nurse, who the sheriff's office said was brutally beaten by a patient at HCA Florida Palms West Hospital last Tuesday.
Assemblyman Heath Flora, R-Ripon, has introduced two bills to upgrade the status of nurse anesthetists amid a shortage of physician anesthesiologists in California and controversy in Modesto about hospital policies.
Assembly Bill 876 would give certified registered nurse anesthetists (CNRAs) the long-sought-after authority to practice independently.
If approved and signed into law, the legislation would bring changes for patients in Stanislaus County and the rest of the San Joaquin Valley, where the shortage of physician anesthesiologists is more acute and smaller hospitals struggle to pay their fees.
After 46 days on strike, nurses at Providence hospitals across Oregon have approved a deal that will see them return to work.
The nurses, who are represented by the Oregon Nurses Association, began their indefinite strike in early January. The strike, which is one of the largest health care worker labor actions in state history, included thousands of nurses at all eight Providence hospitals in the state.
In a statement, Providence officials said they’re pleased that the deal passed.
For some patients staying at Akron Children's Hospital and their families, an additional member of the care team is now available to provide updates and ask questions through their in-room monitors.
The hospital's "virtual nurses," registered staff nurses who do not replace nurses at the bedside, can also send video streams to parents and guardians when they're offsite so they can check on their children.
Nearly 5,000 nurses are continuing to strike at eight Providence Health & Services hospitals across Oregon after rejecting a tentative agreement in votes counted Feb. 7 and 8. More than 90% of strikers voted, and those voting rejected the Providence proposal by more than 80%.
Oregon Nurses Association said the agreement failed because it did too little to ensure safe staffing levels or make wages competitive to help recruit and retain staff. Members also felt the proposed health benefits were inadequate. The tentative agreement also did not include retroactive pay increases. That was seen as rewarding Providence for stalling; collective bargaining agreements normally include a raise at the beginning of the contract term. Providence also held fast against aligning contract expiration dates, which strikers understood as an attempt to limit union power: Because the contracts have no-strike pledges, staggered expiration dates mean nurses at the different hospitals can’t all strike together until all the contracts expire.
In an unprecedented move, more than 800 nurses have launched a strike in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
The nurses work for Geisinger and have launched the strike because they are worried about not having enough staff, not being paid fairly, and over the safety of both the staff and the patients. The nurses are standing outside three different Geisinger locations to show how important they believe it to be that changes are made in the healthcare system.