University of Illinois at Chicago nurses followed through with a planned strike Saturday morning, demanding limits on the number of patients under each nurse’s care and better personal protection equipment.
More than 800 nurses walked off the job at 7 a.m., after the previous three-year contract between the Illinois Nurses Association members and the University of Illinois Hospital expired on Monday.
Downpour rain didn’t stop about 300 nurses from gathering outside the Near West Side hospital, where the medical professionals — all wearing blue T-shirts under rain ponchos and jackets — lined the sidewalks near the hospital’s emergency room entrance at 1740 W. Taylor St. Some carried signs that read “Safety in Numbers” and “Protect our Patients.”
Motorists — including several CTA train conductors — laid on their horns in a show of support for the striking nurses, who are planning to gather for seven consecutive days, or until their demands are met.
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Contract negotiations have stalled, with the union saying they’re “still far apart on key contract issues after 20 bargaining sessions.”
Michael Zenn, CEO of the University of Illinois Hospital & Clinics, said hospital administrators were “disappointed” a marathon 14-hour bargaining session on Friday still ended at an impasse.
“We believe we have been fair and generous to the INA throughout negotiations and in our last offer, reflecting our respect and commitment to our nursing colleagues,” Zenn said in a statement Saturday.
“We are in the midst of a pandemic and maintaining adequate staffing for critical health care functions is even more urgent in these times. While we fully respect our nurses’ right to strike, we believe that this work stoppage is not in the best interest of UI Health or our patient,” Zenn said. “We hope the INA will join us in negotiations today and as often as possible to work toward a new agreement and to end this strike.”
Nurses voted to authorize the strike Aug. 19, and on Sept. 2 the Illinois Nurses Association filed a 10-day notice of its intent to strike.
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The University of Illinois Board of Trustees filed a lawsuit earlier this week seeking to stop the nurses from striking, claiming a work stoppage would pose a danger to the public.
The hospital — which in its lawsuit claimed the strike presents “a clear and present danger to the health or safety of the public” — has said it is prepared to continue operations and safe patient care in the event of a strike.
But University of Illinois Hospital RN and union president Doris Carroll has said “the hospital refuses to engage in a substantive discussion about achieving safe staffing by setting a limit on the number of patients that can be assigned to each nurse.”
“The research and our experience, demonstrate that many hospitals, including those in Chicago, are not operating with safe staffing ratios,” Carroll said in a statement Friday.
Crystal Miles, who’s been a neonatal intensive care nurse for the last 32 years, said patient safety is the striking nurses’ top priority. She said nurses are overwhelmed with the amount of patients they have to care for. She also said the hospital administration proposed that nurses should go to different parts of the hospital to care for patients outside of their track, which she believes could jeopardize patients.
“We’re not trained in that,” she said. “And I think at some point when I walk into the room in an adult unit, and I don’t know what I’m doing, you’re going to figure out really quickly — how safe is that for the patient?
“Morale here is low,” said Miles, who lives in Hyde Park. “It’s tough here to think that you come here to save a life but the administration doesn’t think anything of yours. You don’t even give us the equipment to [do our jobs].”
The union has also accused the hospital of bringing in replacement nurses “from highly infectious states like Texas, Tennessee, California, Utah, Ohio and Arkansas.”
The hospital says they’ve brought on “more than 600 qualified nurses and health care professionals from external sources to support our mission and care delivery.”
Earlier this summer, Illinois Nurses Association members went on strike at AMITA Health Saint Joseph Medical Center Joliet for about two weeks in their bid for a new contract.
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September 12, 2020 at 09:04PM
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UIH nurses strike: Nurses follow through with seven-day strike - Chicago Sun-Times
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