FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, December 11, 2023
CONTACT: Megan Othersen Gorman / [email protected] / (215) 817-5781
Nurses at Prime-Owned Suburban Community Hospital and Lower Bucks Hospital Vote Overwhelmingly to Authorize Strikes; 97% at Suburban and 96% at Lower Bucks Vote YES
“We’ve tried again and again to get Prime to listen to us and to our concerns about patient care, but they continue to work against us and against the protections our contracts afford us and our patients. Maybe if they see us – outside – they’ll begin to work with us to provide our communities with the quality care they deserve.”
Philadelphia, PA – Nearly two months to the day after their contracts lapsed on October 11th and six weeks after staging dual informational pickets to protest dangerous staffing conditions inside both their hospitals – and the grossly inadequate health insurance Prime offers its nurses that makes recruiting and retaining staff incredibly difficult – the nurses at Suburban Community Hospital in Norristown and Lower Bucks Hospital in Bristol voted by overwhelming majorities to authorize their bargaining committees to call strikes if the issues they have raised in ongoing negotiations remain unaddressed.
On Thursday, December 7th, the nurses who comprise the Suburban General Nurses’ Association voted to authorize a 10-day strike notice to owner Prime. The vote total of the strike authorization was 97% YES with outstanding turnout.
Today, the nurses who comprise the Nurses Association of Lower Bucks Hospital similarly voted to authorize a 10-day strike notice to owner Prime. The vote total of the strike authorization was 96% YES with outstanding turnout.
At the core of their negotiations are critical quality of care issues such as the need for safe staffing – as a California based employer, the only state with legally mandated nurse to patient ratios, Prime is capable of staffing safely and to the law in California but flat out refuses to do so in Pennsylvania – recruitment and retention of nurses, and resources and resources for caregivers and therefore patients.
“I’ve been an ICU nurse at Lower Bucks Hospital for 32 years,” says Shirley Crowell, RN, co-president of the Nurses Association of Lower Bucks Hospital. “As our hospital cuts staff, nurses pick up the slack. We act as transporters, secretaries, schedulers, aides, janitorial workers, maintenance crew, phlebotomists, respiratory therapists, educators – the list goes on. We do this for the good of our patients, even as the number of patients assigned to each of us increases at management’s behest. It’s exhausting, and it’s unsustainable. RN vacancy rates have soared. We deserve better, but most importantly, our patients and the community deserve better.”
“This,” she said, “is why we are willing to strike.”
Further adding to the sky-high stress levels of its caregivers, Prime provides its nurses with grossly inadequate health insurance and fights them every step of the way on any medical claim they make, making recruitment and retention of nurses near to impossible.
“A healthcare company should be setting the tone for what healthcare is,” says Suburban ICU nurse Shannan Giambrone, RN, co-president of the Suburban General Nurses’ Association. “Their whole business depends on people seeking out good healthcare. But when it comes to their employees, they don’t feel the need to provide us with the ability to seek out good healthcare in areas where Prime doesn’t offer it. We do our job for our patients and the hospital really well. Prime hasn’t done right by us at all.”
“No nurse should have to beg for a decent healthcare plan, but that’s where we are,” says Lower Bucks ICU nurse Anna Carlin, RN, co-president of the Nurses Association of Lower Bucks Hospital. “Our wages aren’t comparable to surrounding hospitals, which, in combination with the awful healthcare, makes it difficult to attract nurses to our facility. But I’m not even sure they want to: The nurse-to-patient ratios in our present contract enable us to provide safe, quality care to our patients, but in bargaining, Prime has proposed cutting those ratios.”
Decades of research have shown: Hospitals with better nursing environments and above-average staffing levels are associated with fewer patients losing their lives.
“We’ve tried again and again to get Prime to listen to us and to our concerns about patient care,” says Carlin, “but they continue to work against us and against the protections our current contracts afford us and our patients. Maybe if they see us – outside – they’ll begin to work with us to provide our communities with the quality care they deserve. We will not give up on that.”
“We show up every day in the hospital for our patients, and we’ve shown up at the bargaining table in good faith with our patients foremost in our minds for months,” says Suburban Emergency Department nurse Terena Stinson, RN, co-president of the Suburban General Nurses’ Association. “We will never abandon them or each other. Prime needs to understand that.”
Suburban General Nurses’ Association and the Nurses Association of Lower Bucks Hospital are affiliates of PASNAP, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, which represents more than 10,000 frontline nurses and healthcare professionals across the Commonwealth and was founded on the belief that patients receive the best care when clinical-care staff have a strong voice to advocate for both patients and themselves.
