In his Nov. 28 article, “Nurses union fray splits town; Bitterness lingers in Petoskey, Mich., where a long strike at one hospital led to a vote on quitting the Teamsters,” Tribune staff reporter Stephen Franklin seriously misrepresents the decision nurses make when they vote to strike.
Franklin wrote, “Here and in other places, nurses have had to decide whether their priority should be patients or the picket line.”
As a nurse I can tell you, nurses move to picket lines precisely because patients are their priority. Moving to the picket line usually comes after repeated attempts by nurses to address problems that interfere with patient safety only to fall on deaf ears. Nurses don’t enjoy picketing. They do it because it is a powerful public tool to bring attention to organizations that have made profits and not patient care the priority.
Recently the Institute of Medicine released a report, “Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the work environment of nurses,” which shows a clear link between the nursing work environment and patient safety, and recommends improvement in health-care working conditions that would lead to safer patient care.
The report cites evidence-based studies that support what practicing nurses have been saying for the past 10 years: Urgent action is needed to improve nurses’ working conditions and that by doing so, patients’ safety will be protected.
The nurses written about in Franklin’s story at Northern Michigan Hospital are seeking collective bargaining as the mechanism by which they can address their concerns about patient care. They are choosing a proven method used by nurses for the past 50 years to ensure that nurses participate in decision-making in the workplace. The collective-bargaining process is akin to the checks and balances of our democratic government.
When the nurses’ voices are heard, the patients of Northern Michigan Hospital can be assured that their care is the priority.
