15 November 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Nurses from Ascension Via Christi St. Francis and St. Joseph delivered a petition on Wednesday for safe staffing to hospital management.
A news release from the National Nurses Organizing Committee says the petition demanded a reversal of staffing cuts “degrading patient care and safety.”
The National Nurses Union says a new policy from management impacts patient care technicians at their hospitals, a move that will worsen their hospitals’ existing staffing crises.
“Today, we had delivered petitions to save our PCTs here at the hospital, who are patient care techs who help the nurses with taking care of our patients when we aren’t able to be there immediately. Once again, we had a majority over a majority of nurses signed the petition, as well as a large group of nurses come to administration to speak with our new CNO (chief nursing officer),” said Shelly Rader, a registered nurse at the St. Francis Emergency Room.
Ascension sent the following statement to KSN:
We are committed to providing high quality, compassionate care, optimizing our resources and adhering to best practices to meet our patients’ needs.
Ascension Via Christi has not eliminated any patient care support associates and we currently are recruiting for these types of positions.”
Roz Hutchinson, Communications and Public Relations Ascension Via Christi Health, Inc.
“As registered nurses, we rely on our patient care techs to help ensure every patient gets the care they need,” said Rader in a news release. “Just like nurses, their familiarity with the units they work on is an asset that helps improve patient care. Telling these workers that they must either resign or join a float pool is unacceptable, and it will only worsen the issues we’re trying to solve with management at the bargaining table.”
Nurses at both facilities and in Austin, Texas, in June organized a one-day strike asking for safe staffing, employee recruitment and retention and workplace violence prevention in contract negotiations.
“We will continue to fight for our patients, our community and for our nurses,” Rader told KSN. “Our next steps is to wait for their response from our petitions.”