SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Oct. 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Registered nurses at Mercy Medical Center, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, will join elected officials and community supporters for two informational pickets on October 20 to bring attention to hospital owner Trinity Health's failure to properly support and value nurses during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Informational Picket Details
When: Wednesday, October 20 from 6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: On the sidewalk outside Mercy on Carew Street in Springfield.
How: Nurses, healthcare workers and community supporters will follow relevant public health guidelines.

Mercy nurses have made progress in contract negotiations with Trinity over the last several months – fending off takeaway proposals by management and reaching important staffing and other improvements – by joining together with each other and the community, holding informational pickets and delivering a petition with more than 800 signatures to the hospital trustee chair. Yet Trinity continues to seek a punitive cancellation policy that will undermine efforts to improve staffing levels and refuses to offer a contract with competitive compensation that will help the hospital recruit and retain the nurses Mercy needs to provide safe, high-quality care during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

"A complete lack of support by management for nurses after working through the danger and uncertainty of the pandemic is driving nurses to burnout and suffer moral injury," said Alex Wright, RN, and Co-Chair of the MNA Bargaining Committee at Mercy Medical Center. "Trinity Health must change its profit-driven approach and focus on what is best for its nurses and patients."

"We are calling on Trinity Health to ensure the nurses and all hospital staff at Mercy have appropriate support so we can safely and sustainably provide our patients with the incredible care they deserve," said Jaime Dorunda, RN, and Co-Chair of the MNA Bargaining Committee at Mercy Medical Center. "We are proud to stand with our community to advocate for changes that will positively benefit everyone connected to Mercy Medical Center."

The approximately 400 MNA nurses of Mercy Medical Center are negotiating a contract to succeed their contract that expired on December 31, 2020. Trinity Health took over Mercy Medical Center in 2013 when it acquired Sisters of Providence through a merger with Catholic Health East. Based in Michigan, Trinity owns 92 hospitals nationwide and has nearly $20 billion in annual revenue. In the second half of 2020 its net income reached $2.7 billion, up from $805 million during the same period the year before.

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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

 

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SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association