NURSE: JOB SECURITY AT RISK AS OB CLOSURE LOOMS
There are 18 nurses and one licensed vocational nurse who work in the Redwood Memorial Hospital birthing center.
With the impending closure of the unit on July 1, emotions are running high in the unit due in part to uncertainty.
“It has been challenging to continue to provide all the same care with an emotional background of sadness and mourning and uncertainty for myself personally,” said obstetrics nurse Katherine Morrison who works in the birthing center. “I would not say that has affected my ability to perform patient care, or that it affected my co-workers’ abilities to do their jobs, but that we definitely can see in each other that we’re emotionally taxed by the experience, and there’s little consolation we can offer one another because our futures remain uncertain.”
While the hospital said in a Feb. 26 statement that it does “not anticipate any layoffs related to this consolidation,” a California Nurses Association spokesman said only seven positions have been identified by the hospital for the 18 CNA-represented nurses.
“In its response to our request for information, the hospital claims that it has identified ‘seven positions’ in Eureka,” said CNA spokesman Ian Seldon. “It has not told us if they are benefited or part-time or per diem or even nursing positions. According to the Redwood nurses,
the manager who oversees the unit doesn’t even think there are seven positions, much less 18.”
The one LVN at Redwood Memorial is expected to keep their job, a spokesman for the National Union of Healthcare Workers said.
“My understanding at this point is that this worker hasn’t gotten any definitive word from the hospital, but the assumption is this worker will still be employed by St. Joe’s given the public statements from the hospital,” NUHW spokesman Matt Artz said.
Christian Hill, a spokesman for Providence-St. Joseph Health, maintains staffing will increase in the Eureka-based childbirth center.
“The staffing levels will increase in order to accommodate additional deliveries, lactation education and to support the role that our obstetric nurses play in care of mothers that require surgical care such as cesarean section,” Hill told the Times-Standard. “We value the expertise of the Redwood Memorial Hospital obstetric nursing staff and are fully prepared to offer them positions at SJE Childbirh Center.”
For Morrison, who is the primary wage-earner for her Cutten household, the uncertainty means a potential loss of her home.
“I bought a house in 2019, and I’m not sure that if I left bedside nursing in this hospital system, if I would be able to continue to support my household, so we might have to look at relocation,” she said.
She moved to Humboldt County in 2017 for the position.
“I decided after my birth experience and my prenatal care experience that I wanted to become a nurse to work in women’s health and obstetrics,” she said. “I didn’t begin to even seek out nursing as a career until after my personal experience, so for me, it has felt like not just a job or a career from an intellectual capacity standpoint, but a vocational calling to be of service to people … and to provide them care with dignity.”
When Providence-St. Joseph Health announced the decision to close the Fortuna birthing center, it announced renovation of the Eureka-based center with construction to be completed this summer.
But Seldon said a request for information from the hospital by the CNA union provided a different picture.
“In response to our information request, the hospital admits that there will be no expansion of patient rooms or patient beds,” Seldon said. “They are not renovating or remodeling anything.”
Hill said the hospital has the capacity to serve the county’s expectant mothers.
“We’ve evaluated the current capacity of the SJE Childbirth Center, and we have determined with an experienced health care facilities planner that the center and the (neonatal intensive care unit) can accommodate the number of patients seen at (St. Joseph Hospital) and (Redwood Memorial Hospital) combined,” Hill said. “There are five labor rooms which can also be used post-partum, one triage room, six postpartum beds and a five-bed NICU. The renovation is intended to provide a soothing environment to our patients and families, in addition to enhancement of some equipment.”
Seldon said the union will continue to fight for its members’ jobs.
“A former Providence labor relations representative used to repeatedly say ‘We’re just trying to do the right thing,’ most often when he was engaged in doing exactly the opposite,” Seldon said. “I don’t like layoffs and cuts to family health services, but I like it even less when Providence — all the while posturing as a Catholic ‘ministry’ — says it’s just trying to do the right thing as it eliminates jobs and reduces family health services.”