Nurses Union Continues To Protest 'Unsafe' Staffing Levels At SLU Hospital
For the second time in three years, union nurses at SSM Health-St. Louis University Hospital are protesting what they call unsafe staffing levels at the Midtown hospital.
There aren’t enough employees at the facility, said representatives of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, which represents the nurses at the hospital. Nurses constantly have to care for more patients than they can handle. Long wait times mean patients can become agitated and violent, putting employees at risk, representatives say.
“Nowadays, patients are sicker and needing more assistance and medications, and just having that little extra monitoring, an extra set of hands [can help],” said Sarah Dewilde, a trauma nurse and member of the collective bargaining committee, during an informational picket Monday morning. “We want more of a say in what is safer for the patients.”
The nurses’ latest contract expired in June. The 2016 agreement was the first between the union and SSM Health, which bought St. Louis University Hospital in 2015. Staffing levels were a sticking point in those negotiations as well.
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/nurses-union-continues-protest-unsafe-staffing-levels-slu-hospital
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