In an effort to increase their wages and reduce staffing ratios, 3,000 nurses from the Providence hospital system in Oregon are on Day Two of their strike in an effort to increase their wages.
Nurses from six Providence hospitals plan to picket for three days, making it the largest nursing strike in the state’s history.
The strike follows months of contract negotiations between the hospital and the nurse’s union.
In order to keep the hospitals running, the Providence hospital had hired replacement workers for the week.
“The Providence nurses ensured that the handover went well and that our replacement nurses had all of the information they needed to ensure that we were able to continue providing excellent care,” Jennifer Gentry, the Chief Nursing Officer for Providence told KATU.
However, one patient received a call on Monday that his angiogram scheduled for Tuesday would need to be rescheduled a few weeks out.
“When I heard the nurses were going to strike on the same day, I thought ‘oh my god,’” Rodney Gibino told KPTV. “For me it’s not an emergency, my concern is if I was in bad shape and I had to get something taken care of with the angio and it got canceled … for someone that is really having heart struggles it’d be horrible.”
Gentry said that only a “handful” of procedures were delayed.
“We communicate directly with our patients if there’s a need for a delay. There was not an across-the-board closure of services,” Gentry told KPTV.
The nurses on strike are demanding that Providence increase wages, and also health insurance benefits. Some nurses say they faced many out of pocket expenses and some were paying up to $1,000 a month in health insurance to cover a family members’ medical needs.
Gentry said that they cover 82% of the cost of healthcare coverage for its employees; meanwhile the national industry average is at 70%.
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Nurses also have grievances about the increased staffing ratio; however, Providence said they are in compliance with the state’s safe staffing law, which was signed in August.
Last year, 1,300 nurses at Providence Medical Center went on strike for five days. They reached a contract with the hospital weeks later, which increased wages between 17% and 26% over two years.