Informational Picket – Tuesday, July 24, 6 :00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.

Registered nurses at HCA-affiliated MountainView Hospital in Las Vegas will hold an informational picket July 24, urging hospital management to address RN turnover rates and consistently comply with staffing grids. This will improve the recruitment and retention of experienced RNs, and ensure optimal patient care, say nurses.

What: RNs Plan Informational Picket, Urge Management to Address Turnover Rates and Invest in Retaining Nursing Staff
When: Tuesday - July 24, 6:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.
Where: MountainView Hospital, 3100 N. Tenaya Way, Las Vegas

Nurses also plan informational pickets at four other HCA-affiliated hospitals on the same date, July 24, in the following locations: Fawcett Memorial Hospital, Port Charlotte, Fla., Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, Fla., Las Palmas Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, and Corpus Christi Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Texas. Earlier this month registered nurses also held informational pickets at six other HCA-affiliated hospitals in Florida.

The hospital’s turnover rates are borne out in their own data, which nurses obtained through an information request. As of June 2018, nearly a third of the registered nurses, 30 percent, have worked at MountainView for less than 18 months, while nearly half, 47 percent, have worked there for less than three years. Only 19 percent have worked at the hospital for more than ten years.

“Turnover in RN staff poses a significant challenge to providing optimal patient care which is why we’re urging the hospital to take steps to strengthen recruitment and retention, “ said Lauren Helfman, RN, Recovery Room. “We want them to invest in reducing the turnover rate to benefit our patients and we know they have the resources, especially as recipients of huge tax cuts under the Tax Cut and Jobs Act.” The hospital’s data also reveals difficulties in complying with their own staffing grids. Data supplied by the hospital covering the month of January 2018, shows various units, including intensive care units, out of compliance with the hospital’s own staffing grid, including the Medical ICU, 40 percent of the time, the CardioThoracic ICU, 29 percent of the time, and the Neuro ICU, 87 percent of the time.

“We are holding the picket because we want our hospital to excel in patient care. This includes consistently complying with its staffing grid to assure safe staffing levels throughout the hospital,” said Nicole Koester, RN, Intermediate Care Unit.  “When the hospital complies with the staffing grid, our patients are more likely to get the care they need without delay.”

One purpose of a hospital staffing grid is to assure that there are enough nurses to attend to patients' needs in a safe and timely way, taking under consideration the kinds of care required in each unit, including the degree of acuity or sickness. 

The 765 registered nurses at MountainView Hospital are members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, NNOC/Nevada. Their contract expired June 30, 2018 and they are in ongoing contract negotiations. NNOC/Nevada is affiliated with National Nurses United, the largest and fastest growing union of registered nurses in the United States with 150,000 members. NNU plays a leadership role in safeguarding the health and safety of RNs and their patients and has won landmark legislation in the areas of staffing, safe patient handling, infectious disease and workplace violence prevention.