Picketing continues as nurses strike at Delco Memorial
UPPER DARBY >> Resolve was strong and voices were loud Monday as unionized nurses and medical technicians manned the picket line outside Delaware County Memorial Hospital for a second and final day.
“What do we want? Safe staffing. What does it do? Saves lives,” was one of the chants that could be heard along Lansdowne Avenue, between Keystone and Huey avenues in Drexel Hill, drawing some beeps and waves from motorists passing by.
Inside the hospital, according to a DCMH statement, high-quality patient care continued to be delivered, despite the walkout.
“Patients and their loved ones can be assured that DCMH is fully staffed with licensed, certified, experienced, and highly trained nurses and techs,” the statement read in part.
The labor action by members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals union began at 6:45 a.m. Sunday after being unable to reach an agreement with the hospital’s owner, California-based Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. The union represents 370 registered nurses and technical employees at the Upper Darby facility.
Protesters like Winsome Josephs, RN, BSN, an East Lansdowne resident employed at DCMH for the last 12 years, also carried signs with messages that read, “Patients for Profits,” “Respect Nurses, and “Stop Abusive Scheduling Practices.”
Formerly employed in banking and telemarketing, Winsome, 52, graduated from Delaware County Community College School of Nursing in 2004, a path inspired by her father’s illness. She later received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Immaculata University.
“I became a nurse because I am a caring person,” she said. “It’s my last career … I do love it. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
For Winsome, the strike was about upholding commitments to safety standards, and efficiency. It’s a concern when she’s only one of two nurses on a surgical oncology unit caring for as many as 14 patients in a shift, she said.
By her standards, 14 patients require a minimum of three nurses.
“Prior to Prospect, that was the norm,” she said. Though there have been shifts when she’s one of three starting out a shift, “We know we are getting more patients.”
Union leaders said Prospect walked away from the bargaining table over staffing levels, which representatives for Crozer-Keystone Health System denied. Negotiations for a first contract between Prospect and PASNAP have been ongoing for a year, with over 22 meetings, according to the hospital. Prospect is a property of Leonard Green & Partners, a multi-billion dollar private equity hedge fund that owns and operates 18 hospitals and more than 40 clinics and outpatients centers in California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Texas and Pennsylvania. The for-profit Prospect acquired the not-for-profit Crozer-Keystone Health System — DCMH is one of its five facilities — in July 2016.
Grant Gegwich, vice president for public relations and marketing at Crozer, previously stated that the union is doing its best to make the dispute about staffing. But it’s the union’s “unwillingness to accept reasonable increases” in benefits and salary that’s the crux of the stall in talks, he said.
“This is not in our nature to be standing on a picket line,” said Colleen Spaventa, RN, BSN, of Haverford. A nurse for 32 years who started at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, she’s been at DCMH for 13 years. She is also certified in obstetrics.
“It’s in the DNA,” she said, referring to a long line of nurses in the family including her mother and sister.
The strike was called for two days, but nurses will be out of the building for five. The remaining three days are because CrozerKeystone officials say the agencies they use to hire temporary replacements require five days of work. A similar scenario played out at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in 2015.
Talks, which are being coordinated through a federal mediator, are expected to resume on March 14, Gegwich said Monday evening.
Earlier in the day, chief negotiator and PASNAP Executive Director Bill Cruice said a session previously scheduled for Thursday morning was cancelled by the hospital.
“It reflects their overall stubbornness to these negotiations” he said. Cruice expected that discussions would resume “soon” after nurses returned to work on Friday.
As replacements continue to perform union work through Thursday, Cruice said union members will continue to picket during the lockout.
The labor action by members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses & Allied Professionals union began at 6:45 a.m. Sunday after being unable to reach an agreement with the hospital’s owner, Californiabased Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. The union represents 370 registered nurses and technical employees at the Upper Darby facility.
Any impression that DCMH has chosen to lock out strikers is false, according to the hospital.
“Under federal labor law, even after strikers have offered to return to work, there may be a delay in their return if a staffing agency has imposed a minimum as is the case here,” the hospital stated. “The National Labor Relations Board does not consider such a delay in return to work to be a lockout. The only reason that some strikers will continue to be out of work until Friday is that a staffing agency has imposed a five-day minimum as a condition of providing replacements. Strikers who have made an unconditional offer to return to work will be permitted to return as soon as there is a need for their services.”
According to DCMH, surveyors from the Pennsylvania Department of Health have been visiting DCMH, as required during a work action, to closely observe the care being rendered. They have reported that the hospital continues to provide quality care. State health representatives will conduct daily monitoring visits throughout the strike.
Additionally, DCMH reported a “very busy” day on Sunday, day one of the strike.
“From our emergency department to our critical care units, the hospital cared for a high volume of patients. We deeply appreciate the confidence our community continues to place in us despite the negative PR efforts of PASNAP,” DCMH stated.
According to Cruice, the staffing issue at DCMH is a scenario that’s been played out at every hospital in the country acquired by Prospect. Promises made by Prospect to invest were broken, and all the union has seen are staffing changes that put patient care at risk, he said.
He cited two specific scenarios at DCMH: One nurse to seven patients on a cancer floor, where there used to five patients; and a charge nurse in cardiac intensive care whose traditional lone role was to serve as coordinator for patients, nurses and physicians with no patient load, but who now cares for patients.
“It’s alarming,” Cruice said.