St. Vincent has already spent over $5M to prepare for nurses strike

Saint Vincent Hospital says it has already spent $5.4 million on replacement nurses, as an 800-nurse strike gets underway in Worcester. 

On Monday morning, nurses walked out of the 270-bed hospital in protest over staffing, part of ongoing contract negotiations, and kicking off the first nurse’s strike in Massachusetts since the pandemic began.

The extra expenses have been needed to keep the hospital operational despite the walk-out. The hospital, which is owned by the for-profit Tenet Healthcare, says it paid $1.7 million to an undisclosed traveling nurse company up front, and then another $3.7 million on Friday to secure replacement staff.

“Our community can be assured that we have taken the appropriate steps to ensure we will be able to remain focused on providing exceptional, safe, quality care to our patients despite the strike action being taken by the (Massachusetts Nurses Association),” said Carolyn Jackson, Saint Vincent's CEO, in a statement. “While we still remain hopeful that we can reach an agreement with the MNA for a new contract that is fair and beneficial to both parties, we won’t let anything distract us from our primary mission.”

Hourly rates for traveling nurses typically cost far more than the hourly equivalent for staffed nurses, but those costs have only escalated during the pandemic. The Department of Public Health went so far as to issue a bulletin to replacement nursing companies in February, reminding them that the state has a cap on rates companies could charge during the pandemic.

Given that the strike is open-ended, no one knows what the total cost for replacement nurses will be. Nurses and a hospital spokeswoman say the two sides have no current plans to return to the negotiating table.

In 2000, St. Vincent nurses went on a 49-day strike over a contested contract. Dominique Muldoon, a nurse for 23 years at the hospital and a member of the bargaining committee, said she was a nurse’s aid and in nursing school during the 2000 strike at the hospital. For that reason, she says, she knew what was at stake when it came time to vote on a strike in February.

“It was an agonizing decision,” she said. 

Nurses maintain that staffing has deteriorated over the two years of contract negotiations, and nurses have filed numerous safety reports alleging substandard care.

“(The hospital's) stance was, everything is all right,” Muldoon said. “But nurses were struggling every day to provide care.”

Nurses have asked for modified staffing improvements on every floor. Currently, nurses have five patients each, leaving them overwhelmed in the event of an admission or critical patient, Muldoon said. 

The hospital said in a release that its proposal was advantageous, including salary increases as high as 36%, benefits improvements, and enhanced staffing in the ER and some other units. 

“We value our relationship with all of our employees, and we remain ready to reach an amicable agreement with the MNA,” Jackson said in a release. “We want what is best for our nurses, not just a contract that allows the MNA to forward their own staffing ratio agenda.  Regardless, we will be here to care for patients who desperately need us, and that is exactly what we will continue to do.”