Informational Picket – Thursday, August 2, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Registered nurses at HCA-affiliated Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kan. will hold an informational picket Aug. 2, 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: Thursday Aug. 2, 5 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Where: Menorah Medical Center, 5721 W. 119th St., Overland Park, Kan.

Nurses also plan informational pickets at HCA-affiliated hospital, Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas on the same date, Aug. 2, and at Medical Center of Trinity in Trinity, Fla., on August 6.

Over the past five weeks, registered nurses have also held pickets at the following HCA-affiliated hospitals: Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo; Las Palmas Medical Center in El Paso, and Corpus Christi Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Texas; MountainView Hospital in Las Vegas, Nev.; Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte, Fla.; Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, Fla.; Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee, Fla.; Blake Medical Center in Bradenton Fla.; Doctor’s Hospital of Sarasota in Sarasota, Fla.; Oak Hill Hospital in Brooksville, Fla.; and St. Petersburg General Hospital and Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Menorah Medical Center’s difficulty in retaining registered nurses is borne out by their own data, which nurses obtained through an information request. Almost a third of the registered nurses, 32 percent, have worked at Menorah Medical Center for less than 18 months, while over half, 52 percent, have worked there for less than three years. Only 22 percent have worked at the hospital for more than ten years. In 2017, the hospital managed to hire 101 RNs, but lost half as many, 54, during the same time period.

Data supplied from the hospital also indicates that Menorah Medical Center is regularly out of compliance with its own staffing grid. 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. 

According to data supplied by the hospital, documenting shifts throughout the month of December 2017,  various units were out of compliance with the staffing grid including, the Neuro Ortho General Surgery Unit 32 percent of the time, the Rehab Unit, 53 percent, the Surgical Specialty Unit, 23 percent and the Medical/Surgical Unit, 65 percent of the time.

“As a Super Float Pool nurse at Menorah Medical Center, I've worked in multiple Medical- Surgical and Telemetry units, as well as critical care units, like ICU and ER. I know that when the hospital invests in retention and recruitment and compliance with their staffing grid, our patients are more likely to get optimal care without delay,” said Summer Baker, RN, Menorah Medical Center.

“We want the hospital to use its resources for the benefit of our patients,” said Brittney Nichole Bray, RN, Surgical Specialty Unit. “We know the hospital has the resources to strengthen the recruitment and retention of RNs at Menorah, especially since they are beneficiaries of huge tax cuts under the Tax Cut and Jobs Act passed earlier this year."

The 334 registered nurses at Menorah Medical Center are members of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, NNOC/Kansas. Their contract expired May 31, 2018 and they are in ongoing contract negotiations. NNOC/Kansas 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.