Friday, Aug. 5, 2011

Hospital: still bargaining in good faith

The National Nurses United union will be picketing outside of the Central Florida Regional Hospital at 5pm today.

The nurses are rallying over the issues of staffing levels, floating assignments, and poor acute care.

Sheila Garland, the staff organizer for National Nurses United at Central Florida Regional Hospital told WDBO that the RNs at Central Florida Regional tried to set up a task force to address these issues at the hospital.

"The nurses have attempted on several occasions to have a meeting with the chief nursing officer, those meetings were scheduled and then cancelled." Garland said.

Garland also said that after a while the hospital finally agreed to sit down and meet with the nurses last month.

"And again the nurse’s recommendations for how to deal with these concerns were ignored and rejected by the nursing administration at the hospital."

On Friday afternoon Central Florida Regional Hospital issued this statement:

“As required by law, the California based NNOC-FL nurses union notified us of their intent to picket outside our hospital on Friday August 5 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm.  This picket is a legal activity and the Sanford community can be assured that patient care will not be compromised in any way.  In fact, we do not anticipate any inconvenience or disruption to services.  The Hospital has been bargaining in good faith with NNOC-FL since April of this year over a nurses contract.  As bargaining moves ahead, we will continue to provide uninterrupted, high-quality healthcare to our patients and the community we serve.”