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Amidst growing concern for patient safety, the roughly 900 registered nurses of Rochester General Hospital voted on Thursday to authorize a strike. The vote came exactly one year after the nurses’ union was certified by the National Labor Relations Board. The nurses have been in negotiations with hospital administration since October, seeking improvements in staffing levels and patient care comparable to existing conditions at Buffalo and Syracuse hospitals. With little progress from management, the nurses are planning to strike to protest persistent unfair labor practices and demonstrate the urgency of addressing patient safety conditions.“We are doing this for our patients, for our community,” said Christa Kendall, a 20-year nurse in the Medical Stepdown Unit and the union Vice President. “RGH recently got a D rating in patient safety from Leapfrog. That means more patient falls, without enough nurses to catch them. More infections, without enough nurses to prevent them. That’s unacceptable. For years, our concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, as patient care has suffered, executives have given themselves ever higher pay and bonuses. Rochester deserves better than what RGH administration is giving them. When our patients fall, nurses want to be there to catch them.”
The decision to strike was not taken lightly by the nurses; however, their commitment to their patients, coupled with the growing concerns over inadequate staffing levels and unsafe working conditions, led them to take this step to protect the wellbeing of both patients and healthcare professionals.
Unsafe staffing has been a persistent issue at Rochester General Hospital, compromising the ability of nurses to provide the high standard of care they strive for. The nurses are advocating for improved nurse-to-patient ratios to ensure patient safety, reduce workload pressures, and enable adequate time for thorough and personalized patient care. By striking, the nurses aim to bring attention to the staffing crisis and prompt immediate action from the hospital management to rectify the situation.
The result of the vote was over 90% in favor of the strike, which would occur in early August. The union encourages patients and the local community to show their support during this critical time by joining them on the picket line and signing the petition of support at RochesterDeservesBetter.org.
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