COVID updates

Last week, on Aug. 27, management approached the WSNA Rep and Officer Team for a last-minute Conference Committee. They report that as of Friday, Aug. 27, our facility had 77 COVID patients hospitalized, 132 combined with Holy Family and numbers continue to surge higher, which per management are the worst numbers we have ever seen. This, coupled with it being trauma season, and Sacred Heart being a regional facility that serves a wide geographic area, and staffing shortages reaching critical levels, has prompted management to look at some changes in how care is delivered.

The officer team worked to communicate the climate of the various floors as nurses continue to work short staffed and the challenges they are facing around incentive pay. We feel Management did hear our concerns, and they communicated to us to continue to let them know how the nurses are feeling. Because of this, we created a survey to do a temperature take and hear from you. The results WILL BE SHARED with Management. The purpose and goal is to communicate our raw feelings to a graphic level so we can emphasize the immediate needs of the nurses to its full scale. The survey will close on Sept. 19.

Caution – the results will be shared with management. Please share any an all thoughts on what is happening on your floor, staffing, incentive pay, and what you need from them now.

Our team has received many emails regarding caregiver concerns in relation to the Washington State Vaccine mandate. WSNA is actively bargaining with Providence regarding the effects and implementation of this mandate, not the mandate itself.

The deadline to be fully vaccinated in the State of Washington is Oct. 18. This means that caregivers who choose to not be vaccinated must have an approved declination form turned in by that date. Declination forms only include religious and medical exemptions. If you are seeking to be vaccinated prior to the deadline, you must have received the single-dose option, or completed the second dose of the mRNA vaccines, by Oct. 4. Per Gov. Inslee Proclamation 21-14, this order prohibits… “any individual or entity that operates a Healthcare Setting from permitting a Healthcare Provider to engage in work for the individual or entity as an employee, contractor or volunteer after Oct 18 2021 if the Healthcare Provider has not been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and provided proof thereof to the individual or the entity”.

We understand how stressful this decision is and recognize the hardship it puts upon many. Our intention above is to ensure everyone knows their options and understands the current facts of the matter and is fully informed of the timeline.

As far as your officer team goes, we all have reservations about a mandate, but we do support vaccination for healthcare workers. There is a lot of misinformation circulating, promoting a lot of very understandable fear. We are passionate about the importance of respectful and open dialogue regarding this decision, because everyone has the right to have their fears and concerns addressed in a respectful and thoughtful way. If you have questions or want to engage in further discussion, we encourage you to reach out to us.

Incentive MOU concerns

We brought to management’s attention that some units have been eliminating call shifts, or reducing the amount of time in advance nurses can pick up shifts, possibly in response to the Incentive MOU. (Note: The MOU does not include call shifts as incentivized shifts.)

We also noted to management we have heard that some units have drastically reduced their IRC recruitment texts and have moved to ANMs/Managers sending personal calls/texts to staff to have them pick up shifts. The MOU states “extra shift may be implemented to incentivize RNs who volunteer to work extra shifts and overtime shifts”. This means the extra shift can arrive in number of ways, not just via IRC. Be sure to clarify with your manager if the shift is incentive eligible prior to agreeing to work it. We also recommend doing this, via email. During our meeting, Management responded that some units will likely need clarification of the intent of the Incentive MOU, and agrees that the more we can all plan ahead for staffing, the better for all. If you have any further specific issues you feel are occurring in relation to the Incentive MOU, please contact your WSNA Representative. The more specific, the easier it can be to address. The intention of the MOU is to bolster staffing, not to place barriers in front of nurses wanting to pick up.

When asked if staffing has improved in the past several weeks, management stated it was hard to say, as patient loads have increased and there have been a lot of exposures.

Child care options

We pointed out to management that a large barrier to picking up more shifts is childcare and identified that there is a large need that they could fill. We discussed that childcare assistance could be very useful to staff and help ameliorate the staffing crisis somewhat. They have not yet responded with any specifics regarding this suggestion.

Burnout amongst nurses

We stressed to management that this last year has taken an extreme toll upon all of us. Nurses are burning out at record rates, and as many as 42%, according to a recent poll conducted by SIA (Survey Information Analytics) in Washington state, have left or have considered leaving the nursing profession altogether. These feelings of burnout are very, very real.

We encouraged management to provide and direct staff to further resources for burnout. In response, they should be soon sending out a list of resources that staff can engage with. They also noted there is an on-site counselor available to deal with the high emotional toll we have been experiencing.

We also pointed out the importance of interpersonal engagement from management to individual nurses, even down to unit managers and ANMs reaching out to staff individually to touch base with how they are doing. If you have other ideas with how management can promote resiliency and address burnout, please connect with us. We can forward those ideas to management. We are experiencing an extreme time of stress and struggle – all ideas are welcome.

Most importantly, we made it very clear to management that feeling valued by an institution is critical for resiliency and reduced burnout levels and indicated very strongly that retention bonuses for existing staff would be something WSNA would be happy to bargain. Hospitals across the country are hemorrhaging nurses, and we feel it is of critical importance that systems keep and support experienced nurses with longevity.

Pediatric changes

We had heard that there were going to be changes in pediatrics, so we brought these changes up to ensure clarity. Management responded that yes, patients with specific and appropriate diagnoses up to age 21 will be admitted to pediatrics units. We stressed our concerns involving patients over this age limit since we had also heard patients up to the age of 26 would likely be admitted. We stressed that this could land inappropriate patients in pediatrics and it was against SHMC policy. We also emphasized that management must take volunteers for cross-training first across the adult and pediatric world. Management agreed that volunteers are best, but that “just in time” training may also be required as the census situation is rapidly evolving. To reiterate, Sacred Heart policy does allow up to 21 years of age in pediatrics, but these patients must have specific and appropriate diagnoses to be there. Continue to bring specific concerns to our attention.

As of Sept. 1, Management has informed us the Peds units will take patients up to age 25 very soon. WSNA responded swiftly to this news, and management has told us the patients will not be critical. Regardless, we reiterated with management that volunteers must be sought first for these assignments, or nurses can request to be cross trained. Management did confirm this is the preferred method when asking nurses to take these assignments and will not force anyone who does not want to do cross train work.

If you feel you are being asked to take an unsafe assignment and have not been trained to take care of a patient safely, be sure to fill out an Unsafe Staffing Form. These forms protect your practice and go to the Safe Staffing Committee. If you still don’t feel your voice is being heard, contract your Nurse Representative.

IRC timecard issues

If you have been seeing last minute changes being made to your timecards, especially after you have approved them, management has been made aware of this issue on multiple occasions in the last several months. They indicated to us they were working on a communication for all staff, including managers, that will clearly define employee, IRC, and manager roles. In the meantime, please submit all timecard questions to watimekeeping@providence.org and continue to communicate errors to your managers or ANMs so they can be fixed, prior to finalization of the timecard if possible. Let us know if any specific issues are going unaddressed by management – the more specific, the better.

See the officer contact information on the bar at the top of this web page.

Other questions? Reach out to WSNA Nurse Representative Jaclyn Smedley BSN, RN at jsmedley@wsna.org