Over the last few weeks, we have seen the pressures of our nurses struggling with the fierce third surge of COVID. With our surge in COVID patients, the hospital reaching near capacity of beds, the opening of the COVID units, the negatives impact of chronic nurse staffing shortages, the pressure is on! We have been trying to collaborate with hospital top leadership to address the crisis and find ways to prioritize resources for staff retention so we can continue to provide safe patient care we all want to deliver. Most of our ideas and solutions have fallen on deaf ears. Unfortunately, the number of reports regarding patient safety at Tacoma General have increased, indicating a need to intervene for the safe care of patients. The nurses have spoken and we hear you loud and clear!

Last week we filed a complaint with the DOH, using your patient stories to demonstrate the concerns that you have for your patients. Many of these were in the form of ADO’s which demonstrate a recurring problem from the perspective of front-line workers and what they experience “in the moment.”

Please continue to fill out ADOs! We consider all missed meals, missed rest breaks, and inadequate staffing to be patient safety concerns because they interfere with your ability to provide the best care. Be sure to give enough details on the ADO’s so that we can determine how the assignment presented risk, or real harm, to your patient. Examples of risk or harm to patient safety include:

• Patient abuse or neglect
• Staff not available to provide care
• Failure to provide care
• Providing the wrong care
• Medication errors or mistakes
• Unsafe, unclean or dangerous areas in the facility
• Patient injuries or falls
• Not following medical orders
• Improperly prepared food
• Not responding to a patient complaint

Remember, the staffing law provides that Staffing Complaints/ADO’s must be reviewed by the staffing committee. The hospital MAY NOT retaliate against or engage in any form intimidation for an employee, patient, or other individual who notifies the nurse staffing committee of his or her concerns on nurse staffing. It is because of your due diligence in submitting ADO’s and voicing your concerns, that we were able to get DOH to investigate the staffing and patient safety concerns urgently.

DOH began their investigation on 12/21/2020, so keep an eye out for them on site.

As we continue to demand the attention of hospital leaders and push for them to listen to the nurses and frontline workers about what is truly needed at the bedside, we must have good labor and management relations that supports this work. Again, unfortunately, we are disappointed that we are not seeing this happen. We have heard very disturbing reports of WSNA members facing challenges when working with the new management team at Tacoma General. Union activities are protected activities and we will not allow our members to be intimidated, coerced, or retaliated against by Union busting management.

On 12/18/2020 we filed 8 ULP’s (Unfair Labor Practices) against TG management for their treatment of members and anti-union practices. These range from not providing requested information WSNA to making threatening statements to bargaining unit members and denigrating union support. We must show them that we are united and wont break under their pressure! Investigation into these ULP’s is also underway.

Finally, we have also taken nursing concerns to media, detailing how Multicare is failing to notify staff about outbreaks that occur within their hospitals. Good Samaritan recently had 9 nurses and 2 patients fall ill within three weeks due to a failure to enforce contact tracing or provide timely testing.

See the article released by TNT here:
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/coronavirus/article247835240.html#storylink=cpy

Thank you for everything that you do! We will continue to fight to make Tacoma General and MultiCare do the right thing! Continue to voice your concerns, fill out ADO’s and contact your local unit officers or you nurse representative, Brenda Balogh at bbalogh@wsna.org.