In a Tweet on Friday afternoon, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker told Saint Vincent Hospital and the Massachusetts Nurses Association union to end the strike ongoing at the Worcester healthcare facility since March 8.
“The Commonwealth needs every available healthcare resource fully operational while we are responding to this pandemic. It’s time for both parties to get back to the table and reach consensus at St. Vincent’s Hospital,” Baker said on his official Twitter account, @MassGovernor.
The strike has been blamed for the hospital bed and healthcare staffing shortage in Central Massachusetts, which — among other ramifications — led in part to UMass Memorial Health to run out of intensive care unit beds this week throughout its entire system in Worcester, Leominster, Clinton, Southbridge, and Marlborough, amid the latest spike in coronavirus cases.
Saint Vincent closed 100 beds at the Worcester hospital in August, blaming the lack of resources created by the 800 members of the MNA going on strike, originally over patient-to-nurse staffing ratios.
The two sides have since agreed on staffing ratios, but the latest sticking point in the negotiations is whether the MNA members still on strike can return to their same positions and shifts at the hospital. Saint Vincent has said all will return to jobs at the hospital, but not necessarily the same jobs.
“We are appalled that while refusing to remove this road block to a fair settlement, [Saint Vincent CEO] Carolyn Jackson and [hospital parent company] Tenet is prolonging this strike, callously endangering our entire community and overwhelming our health care system purely out of spite and their refusal to be held accountable for providing safe patient care and to treat their employees with the respect we deserve for our years of service to this hospital and the sacrifices we made to care for our community during the worst public health crisis in our nation’s history,” striking nurse Marie Ritacco said in a statement released by MNA, referring to the desire of the striking nurses to return to the same jobs.
About 200 replacement nurses have been hired since the strike began.
“We agree with Governor Baker that the nurses strike has gone on far too long, and it’s no surprise that the MNA refuses to take responsibility for their role in prolonging this strike,” Saint Vincent Hospital said in a statement sent to WBJ on Saturday. “The MNA disingenuously denies that we reached out to the union at all … Our willingness to discuss creative solutions remains.”
In their competing statements responding to Baker’s Tweet, both the hospital and MNA offered a disputed timeline over who had been holding up the final negotiations in the strike, with each side blaming the other. “
On Wednesday, the president of Saint Vincent Hospital medical staff, Dr. Bogdan Nedelescu, signed an open letter to the MNA nurses, begging them to end the strike.
