Yesterday was our fifth bargaining session.  Your fellow nurses on your WSNA bargaining team focused exclusively on nurse safety issues.  At the outset, Management proclaimed that safety was their top priority, but their steadfast rejection of our proposal to improve nurse safety sent a different message. Less than two years after the murder of Doug Brant while on a home visit, Management’s memory and commitment to safety seem to have faded.

For example, Management has rejected our proposal to provide widely-used safety apps on nurses’ work phones and has even expressed concern about continuing to allow nurses to use BOND Air Guardian or something similar on a personal device. This is not okay!

Previously, nurses were allowed to have security escorts when they felt unsafe during a visit.  Now, Management steadfastly rejects our proposal to have a security escort provided if the nurse has a concern about potential violence.  Further, Management’s definition of what they consider to be an unsafe situation when a nurse can refuse an assignment is exceedingly NARROW and could continue to expose nurses to potentially unsafe and violent environments.  For example, Management told us that a nurse confronted by a pile of cocaine on a table or fentanyl in plain sight may be required to don full PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and continue the home visit.

WSNA has made proposals that would give the power to nurses to decide whether a home is safe to enter and provide care, or whether a security escort is needed.  Management rejects these proposals and leaves the decision up to a manager, who is not on site.

In defense of its approach to nurse safety, Management made a PowerPoint presentation on Complex Case Reviews. Apparently, Management felt the need to provide your negotiating team of experienced Home Health RNs with examples of when a CCR was successful in adverting an unsafe situation. Your negotiating team noticed during the presentation that pertinent facts were not disclosed, so we were sure to let management know the real story behind what happened and to point out an unsafe situation was adverted not because of a management driven CCR, but because of other reasons. Management continues to reject our proposals to strengthen the CCR process by including nurses directly.  We pointed out that a poorly-managed situation in the past has led to valuable nurses leaving VNA.  Safety concerns, coupled with low pay, drive current nurses away and discourage other nurses from working at PVNA.

We are disappointed to report our next scheduled day set for August 27 has been cancelled by management because it needs to divert bargaining resources to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in response to a potential strike by SEIU. We are working on finding additional dates, but nothing has been determined as of yet.

GET INVOLVED!

If we are going to be successful at the table, we need each and every nurse to step up. If you do not, you're telling management that the status quo is acceptable.  We need your stories about unsafe and potentially violent situations and about management’s failure to listen and act when an issue was reported to management but fell on deaf ears. Collected stories help us at the bargaining table to paint a picture of what our home visits are like. Management truly does not understand. We can help them get it.

Keep the car/window signs pictures coming! Several nurses have sent in their selfies. We need more!

Send both safety stories and selfie pictures to Jaclyn Smedley Nurse Representative at jsmedley@wsna.org by Friday, August 23. We are in this together, we are ONE.