SCRANTON — When staff are stretched thin, fall-risk patients at a Scranton hospital often wind up parked in recliners behind the nurses’ station, according to the nurses union.
Geisinger Community Medical Center officials contend that moving patients near the nurses’ station is a way to keep those with dementia engaged. It’s not a short-staff remedy, they said.
It’s one of a number of examples that the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, or PASNAP, local is making as temperatures rise over the union’s next contract.
The old contract lapsed without a replacement at the end of October. Both sides remain at odds on nurse staffing levels throughout the hospital, and union members say Geisinger negotiators are digging in their heels on key issues.
In a written statement, hospital spokesman Matt Mattei challenged the union’s positions and said the members haven’t cooperated to set another date to bargain.
As of Wednesday, a bargaining date had not been scheduled.
Registered nurses are among the most in-demand professionals across the country. Hospitals and health systems compete for talent, and nurses have no shortage of options when choosing where to work.
Union leaders, who represent more than 400 registered nurses at GCMC, say the hospital has around 235 open full-time nurse positions that are being filled with agency and travel nurses and overtime, and accuses the hospital of loading up incentives for new recruits but failing to reward tenured service.
“These new nurses, they come out of school, they have the talent, they have the passion,” said Kali Gargone, a recovery room nurse. “But then their workload is so high, their stress level is so high, that after their first taste of bedside nursing, they go, ‘This isn’t for me any more.’ ”
They quit after two years to work for a specialty clinic or a traveling nurse company where they earn more money, she said.
Union leaders told The Times-Tribune that they believe skeleton-crew conditions have led to poor safety grades by the nonprofit hospital rating organization Leapfrog. GCMC scored poorly for nurse staffing numbers and too many patient falls, among other measures.
Mattei said the hospital earned an overall B grade based on 28 measures, and the medical center is performing on par with the best hospitals nationwide.
“We recognize opportunities to improve and are taking a multidisciplinary approach among physicians, nurses, other allied health professionals and environmental services to earn a grade of A with a goal of zero harm to our patients,” he said.
This year, the hospital recorded 2.32 overall falls per 1,000 patient days, which is below the national benchmark of 2.5, he said.
Geisinger offered union members $5,000 retention bonuses on Oct. 29, the day before their contract expired, he said.
“The union rejected that offer even though it is our understanding that Geisinger has the only hospitals in the area offering a retention bonus,” he said. “We have also proposed language on how to jointly tackle staffing and make other improvements including enhanced paid time off that would increase the annual hours accrued for 88% of the nurses.”
Gargone described a frantic environment in which they rarely take breaks during long shifts, and if they do, they’re frequently interrupted when one of their patients needs something in a hurry.
Geisinger officials say each unit is responsible for managing their own breaks, and that nurses who have trouble taking scheduled lunch breaks are encouraged to speak with a manager, team coordinator or charge nurse.
But charge nurses, who are supposed to have no patients or, at most a few patients with less-serious ailments, often pick up full patient loads of their own, according to union members.
The union has not announced plans to strike but plans to ramp up a public relations campaign, local president Roben Schwartz said.
“We have plans in the works for engaging the community, engaging all of our nurses, engaging our families,” she said.
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