Officials of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees have accused UNMH management of disrespecting nurses working in the hospital and devising policies that are leading to a large turnover of senior nurses to other areas of healthcare work.
The officials said that they believed the turnover of senior nurses to be on track for 17 percent in 2015, far “above the national average of about 12 percent.”
UNMH administration contradicts these statistics, claiming that the turnover has been stable for the last three years and below the national average.
Lorie MacIver, president of District 1199 for the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, held a press conference to announce the findings on Thursday. She said that bad policies of hospital management were leading to a major turnover of nurses at the hospital, directly affecting patients.
“The lack of adequate staff and the lack of real consideration of the professional opinions of nurses and care-givers by managers are the two most prevalent reasons health care employees are leaving our hospital for work in other areas of health care,” she said.
She estimated that the turnover rate for the year 2015 was on track to be 17 percent. However, the UNMH administration in a statement claimed the current turnover percentage to be 14 percent.
She said that every time a nurse leaves UNMH, it costs the hospital in excess of $60,000. She said the main reasons behind the large turnover are the disrespect from management and overburdening of responsibilities.
“They [the nurses] feel like the target of intimidation and bullying by the management. What the nursing professionals will not do is to turn into a generation of step workers and robotic support staff,” she said.
“We have training. We know what we are doing. Let us do what we are trained to do. Let us explain to you what we are trained to do.”
John Arnold, director of News and Multimedia Services at UNMH, said that the hospital administration is extremely proud of its team.
“The highly trained and experienced health care professionals who work at UNM Hospital care for some of the sickest patients in the state in the busiest hospital in the state. They are dedicated to the safety and well -being of all patients, which is our number one priority,” he said.
MacIver said that the nurses are seeing a lack of commitment on the part of the management.
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“We are saying that we want to talk to them,” she said.
She said that the hospital administration is changing their staffing model and is essentially covering up the practices.
“You put the frog in the water but you do it slowly so that no one notices that. UNMH’s staff model is becoming more like other hospitals,” she said.
She said the presence of senior nurses make a difference in teaching hospitals as they guide new nurses and residents every year.
“If you talk to new nurses they will tell you that their worst fear is to be on a unit that does not have a senior nurse. The latest unit I looked at was the new born ICU and the turnover rate for that unit was somewhere above 17 percent, which is high,” she said. “I have been working at that unit for more than 10 years, and let me tell you that I do not recognize most of the day time staff at that unit because of the turnover.”
She said that the hospital management does not want to talk about the issues and listen to the recommendation of nurses to stop the large turn over. She also criticized the new system introduced by the hospital management to track beds.
“They have a new system that tracks beds. So, a patient will get discharged and before the nurse has time to turn around and fill the discharge paper work, there is another patient in the bed,” she said.
She said the nurses do not want the emergency room to hold patients for days but the management needs to give nurses enough time to be ready to welcome the new patient and take adequate care of them.
“They need to evaluate the system that they are using,” she said.
Daymonique Chavez , a nurse by profession and former employee of UNMH, said that she left the hospital after two years because of overload and disrespect towards nurses by the management.
“There were several factors and one of them was disrespect from management. I thought many of the nurses that I was working with were disrespected. The atmosphere was contagious. Senior nurses were leaving and the hospital was short on staff. It was a difficult environment to work in,” she said.
However, Arnold said that UNMH has one of the highest nurse staffing ratios in the state and its staffing ratio is above the average of other teaching hospitals in the country.
UNMH, for its part, has taken steps to retain the nurses.
Arnold said UNMH reached an agreement with its union in June.
“There were significant pay raises for hospital employees, who indicated they were 'extremely happy' with the increases. We believe this will help recruit and retain talented health care professionals.”
He said the hospital management looks forward to continued dialogue with employees on other ways it can work together to address concerns.
Sayyed Shah is the assistant news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at assistant-news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @mianfawadshah.
