🔒Saint Vincent nurses strike puts new emphasis on health staffing shortages

In mid-May, Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester announced it had opened a total of 102 positions to permanent replacements for union nurses who have been on strike since March 8.

But Marlena Pellegrino, a registered nurse who is one of the leaders of the strike, said she’s skeptical many nurses are stepping up to fill the positions. Many in the heavily unionized profession refuse to cross picket lines. But, even beyond that, Pellegrino said, filling positions at the hospital was a challenge even before the strike began.

“We had 85 vacancies before we went on strike that were not filled for months and months just because of the poor working conditions, the lack of respect, and the unsafe staffing,” she said.

Anita Holbrook, Saint Vincent chief human relations officer, disputed Pellegrino’s statements. When it comes to the replacement worker hiring, she said, the hospital has successfully attracted both external candidates and strikers who chose to cross the picket line by offering attractive positions nurses with less seniority might normally not be able to get.

“We have a great opportunity because we’re posting positions for day shift primarily, and for specialty units,” Holbrook said.

Yet Holbrook agreed with Pellegrino, outside of the strike, filling positions hasn’t been easy over the past few years. That’s related to both pressures created by the COVID-19 pandemic and longer-term issues in the healthcare industry.

“There was a national shortage before the pandemic,” Holbrook said.

Advantage to the workers

The conflict between Saint Vincent management and nurses affiliated with the Massachusetts Nurses Association union highlights the difficulty hospitals and other healthcare employers in Central Massachusetts and across the country are facing as a variety of factors converge to make it hard to fill positions.

Melissa Franklin, director of Favorite Healthcare Staffing in Worcester, said the entire healthcare industry is having a hard time recruiting workers right now. She said temporary COVID-related positions like working at vaccination clinics can pay more than regular permanent jobs.

“It makes it more difficult to find a nurse to go to work for $40 an hour,” she said.

Franklin said she’s finding it hard to fill lower-paid jobs like medical assistant, dental assistant and certified nursing assistant, given the generally tight labor market.

“I can’t get a CNA to go to work for less than $19 an hour right now, and I don’t know if that’s going to change,” she said. “And I don’t know if it should. I think they’re worth that all day long for what they do.”

Ethan Roden, director of human resources & operations for MSG Staffing in Worcester said all kinds of jobs in healthcare, from CNAs to specialty registered nurses, have become difficult to fill during the pandemic.

“Rising challenges include burnout, personal time commitments necessitated by virtual schooling, and a desire for less strenuous work environments,” he said in an email.

Roden said the shortage of healthcare workers is allowing candidates to shop around not just for jobs paying higher wages but for better working conditions like schedule flexibility and more time off to spend with family.

“Everyone is sourcing the same candidates for an unlimited number of needs,” he said. “Knowing this, healthcare professionals are making non-traditional requests.”

Roden said one important competitive advantage employers can offer is training and a path to career advancement, which is something Holbrook said Saint Vincent counts as a strength.

“We offer career paths: personal care aide to RN to specialty unit,” she said. “You can go from in-school to leadership position over the course of several years.”

Staffing ratios

Another major factor in the attractiveness of jobs to healthcare workers is something at the heart of the labor dispute at Saint Vincent: staffing ratios and hospital safety. The union argues one nurse frequently has to work with five patients at a time, leading to unsafe conditions.

“No nurse wants to go to work thinking, when they came home, ‘What did i miss? What could I have done for that patient?’” Pellegrino said.

Saint Vincent management disputes the notion it has more trouble than other hospitals in recruiting and retaining workers. The hospital says its safety record is as good or better than comparable hospitals.

Franklin said staffing ratios are a big issue in general for healthcare workers, both at hospitals and at nursing homes, where sometimes only one RN and two other workers staff an entire floor. RNs are considered professionally responsible for safety conditions under the state licensing system.

“There are certain facilities that we staff that I have nurses that won’t go back there because there’s 30 patients per nurse,” she said. “They’re worried about their licensure, and they should be.”

Franklin said staffing issues can be a vicious cycle since poor staffing can push professionals to leave the job. She said the state needs more people training for healthcare jobs to help fix the situation.

While relations between Saint Vincent nurses and management remain tense, both sides say they are working for a resolution to allow the hospital to retain or recover its standing as a key Central Massachusetts institution.

“We’re going to stabilize our hospital again and bring it back to what it once was,” Pellegrino said. “It was a beacon of the city, it was a beloved community hospital, and we’re going to bring it back to that.”