26 July 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – National Nurses United, the union representing registered nurses at the Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph and Ascension Via Christi St. Francis hospitals, was going to deliver petitions to hospital management demanding improvement in patient care. However, the nurses at Via Christi St. Francis said that didn’t happen.
The nurses claim they work in unsafe conditions due to understaffing, which puts patients at risk.
“With the open door policy, they decided that, I guess today, we don’t have an open door policy,” said Shelly Rader, a registered nurse in the emergency department at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis Hospital. “Security met us at the front door or at their offices and would not let us in.”
The petitions come a month after a one-day strike was held at both hospitals in Wichita and another Ascension hospital in Texas.
Nurses at the hospitals are negotiating fair contracts that would improve patient care by improving working conditions for nurses.
The union claims that Ascension is maximizing profits over patients and has enough financial resources to hire more staff. Ascension is in the top 10 largest health systems in the U.S.
KSN News has reached out to Ascension Via Christi for comment.