Union blocks strike replacement nurses. (deaths can rise 18%)

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation

The Oregon Nurses Association is part of a 3,000 nurse strike in six different Providence health centers.  The Union is now asking other nurses not to show up to fill-in lost nurses to hospitals.

KPTV reports, “The [union] letter provided by Providence said in part, “Providence is trying to hire strike-break nurses right now. We strongly encourage all nurses to stand in solidarity with these ONA members and not accept travel nurse contracts scheduled to start in June or July for these employers.”Gentry believes that request could either hurt or deter patients from seeking care at Providence facilities, which is why she’s calling on union leadership to acknowledge Providence’s responsibility to the community.“This is not a shop floor. These are hospitals, and we have patients, and their lives are in our hands. So, it’s very important that we don’t create a narrative that could impact that negatively,” Gentry said.”

Both Cornell University and MIT studies have discovered that “strikes increase in-hospital mortality by 18.3 percent and 30-day readmission by 5.7 percent for patients admitted during a strike…. The results suggest that hospitals functioning during nurses’ strikes do so at a lower quality of patient care”

Oregon has already seen this as the previous Providence strike caused delays by weeks for important surgeries.  Their emergency rooms were overloaded with delays that took hours.

People will likely face serious harm if hospitals are unable to be fully staffed.