HealthAlliance nurses file unfair labor practice charge
Registered nurses at HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster have filed an unfair labor practice charge over what they say is the hospital’s refusal to provide key information about its plans to merge hospital services and cut staff, according to the union that represents the nurses.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), which represents the nurses, said they filed the complaint Monday with the National Labor Relations Board.
The MNA said the charge comes after several attempts by the union to obtain a variety of records, communications and reports from hospital management that detail both its plans and rationale.
The union said nurses at the hospital, part of UMass Memorial Health Care, “strongly believe these plans will jeopardize the health and safety of every patient in the hospital.”
The nurses said they sought a copy of a report from a consulting firm that hospital management reportedly relied on before it told nurses on June 6 that it would make “drastic” cuts in services and staff. Less than two weeks later, the MNA said HealthAlliance announced it would cut 20 RN positions (the hospital would not confirm that number) and an undisclosed number of support staff positions in the emergency department. At the time, the MNA said HealthAlliance was also planned to merge the pediatric and maternity units and increase patient assignments for nurses on the night shift.
The hospital’s plan calls for increasing nurses’ patient assignments on the night shift from five to six, the MNA said, adding that such an action, according to research, would increase the risk of death for all those patients by 7 to 14 percent.
“The hospital’s lack of transparency is very unsettling,” said registered nurse Theresa Love, secretary and grievance chair of the Health Alliance bargaining unit. “We still have yet to see a complete, hospital-wide plan in terms of lost and reduced positions. And we have countless unanswered questions about the proposed reorganization … All these unknowns are difficult for the nurses who continue to deliver exceptional bedside care, but just imagine how difficult they must be for patients and the community at large.”
A spokesperson from HealthAlliance did not immediately respond to an email request for comment this morning on the nurses’ action. When the cuts were announced, hospital CEO Deborah Weymouth said the layoffs would take place by the end of the fiscal year, on Sept. 30.
HealthAlliance spokeswoman Kelli Rooney said at the time the hospital was still determining how many workers would be impacted. Rooney added that the hospital's pediatrics unit currently cares for an average of just two patients per day. Moving the unit to maternity was initially suggested by staff nurses, she said, and will align clinical care and improve staffing synergies.
The nurses met with hospital management on Monday to seek more information, according to the MNA.
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