Ascension plans to bring in temporary nurses for four days in response to one-day strike

Ascension says it plans to have replacement nurses work at Via Christi St. Francis and Via Christi St. Joseph hospitals for at least four days in response to National Nurses United announcing a one-day strike. Tweak to your lede:

The strike is slated to last from 7 a.m. July 6 until 7 a.m. July 7.

What Ascension calls a “full complement of highly skilled, credentialed replacement registered nurses” will work a minimum of four days, however, because that is the minimum length of time the staffing agency for which they work would agree to, according to a press release from Ascension, which owns Via Christi.

Any Ascension nurse that takes part in the strike will be able to return to his or her regularly scheduled shifts beginning the morning of July 10, Ascension said. Any Ascension nurses who don’t participate in the strike will work their regular shifts while the replacement nurses are in place.

St. Francis and St. Joseph will both remain open and fully operational during the strike, according to Ascension. “Comprehensive contingency plans are in place to ensure there is no disruption in care or service for our patients and communities.”

The union has said it represents about 1,200 nurses in Wichita, but it is unknown how many members will participate in the strike.

A national spokeswoman for National Nurses United referred questions to Carol Samsel, a National Nurses United member and registered nurse at St. Joseph for the past 43 years.

“We only strike for one day to get the point across,” Samsel said in a June 29 interview with The Eagle. “And then we’re ready to go back to work to take care of our patients. They know what we need after one day. Well, they’ve been knowing what we need. They just need to come to the table and bargain with us.”

Ascension and Via Christi nurses have been in contract talks since March, the union said last week. But it isn’t the lack of progress on a new contract that led to the call for a strike. It is the union’s ongoing concerns about workplace safety, including two incidents last week at St. Joseph.

On June 21, a 33-year-old Wichita man entered St. Joseph’s emergency room with a gun and then shot himself just outside the main entrance to the waiting area. Police say the man died on June 24, which happened to be the same day that police say a 15-year-old called in threats that he was going to shoot up St. Joseph hospital.

The hospital went on lockdown that afternoon, and a teen was booked into the Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center on suspicion of criminal threat that evening. No weapons were discharged at the hospital, and no one was injured.

The presidents of St. Joseph and St. Francis issued a memo to staff on the afternoon of June 24 saying that, starting in August, “24-hour weapons detection devices will go live at the Emergency Department entrances” of both hospitals. The memo was released after the nurses union already had voted to authorize a strike. The memo, which was obtained by The Eagle, also said that the health system will hire security officers trained in the weapons detection system who will work alongside existing security personnel inside the emergency departments, according to previous reporting by The Eagle.

Samsel, the long-tenured nurse at St. Joseph, said the hospitals have to put more safety measures in place.

“You know you want to feel safe when you come to work,” Samsel said. “We do not feel safe when we come to work.”

She said the union has been trying to get a weapons detection system and additional security personnel for more than three years.

“We bring up security issues every month,” Samsel said, in reference to the union’s Professional Practice Council. “We brought this up before we even had our other contract two years ago.”

Samsel said hospitals across the country have seen an increase in violent events on their campuses. Research published by the Journal of American Medical Association found that hospital-based shootings have been increasing for 25 years.

“With each incident that happens, everybody just feels a little bit more unsafe,” Samsel said. “Like what’s going to happen next? And, you know, we want our patients to be safe, we want to be safe, we want our communities to be safe. That’s our top priority.”

In the past, hospital management has told the Professional Practice Council that they would consider safety measures, Samsel said.

In addition to a weapons detection system for the emergency department entrances, the union would like the front doors to have similar systems, Samsel said. In addition, the union has asked for a more secure visitor check-in system. And, while some changes have been made, Samsel said the union does not think the changes go far enough. The union also wants all employees to have pendants that could be used to alert security when violence occurs.

Ascension made the following statement in its press release: “Via Christi remains deeply committed to bargaining in good faith to reach mutually beneficial agreements that provide our nurses with the market-competitive compensation and benefits they deserve, that (ensures) the long-term viability of Via Christi, and that (allows) us to continue delivering on our shared mission of delivering safe, compassionate care to all.”

It said via email that the company declined to comment beyond the statement it released about having nurses in place when the strike happens and the addition of emergency department weapons detections systems and the hiring of additional security personnel.

Contributing: Chance Swaim of The Eagle.