Patient Advocate: Nurses raise concerns over working conditions

When nurses strike, it’s not about walking away from patients — it’s about fighting for them.

Across the country, nurses are raising voices over what they view as unsafe staffing conditions, wages that don’t reflect the intensity of the job or protect them from inflation, workplace violence, lack of mental health support and the growing strain on the quality of patient care.

Research has shown that adequate nursing ratios — how many patients per nurse — has a direct impact on patient outcomes: lower risk of death, fewer complications, fewer safety incidents and better patient satisfaction. In Illinois, hospitals are required to disclose their nursing ratios.

When you’re in the hospital, you can gauge for yourself whether there are enough nurses. It may take a long time for someone to answer a call bell. Medications may be delayed or missed. Your vital signs may not be monitored as closely. And you can tell, despite their professionalism, when a nurse seems exhausted or frustrated.

Nobody wins.

As I write this, nurses at New York Presbyterian Hospital finally reached a tentative agreement after initially voting down the hospital’s latest contract proposal. It was a six-week, 39 day strike. The major issue is what they consider unsafe staffing. “From the beginning, our biggest concern was staffing,” said the president of the New York state Nurses Association, Nancy Hagans.

Nurses at two other major New York hospitals went back to work after making progress on issues including protections from workplace violence and staffing, as well as pay.

In California, Kaiser Permanente workers — some 31,000 of them — remained on strike for the fourth week. Members of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals have never before walked off the job. Again, staffing is the main issue, along with what they see as pay that is inadequate for recruiting and retaining medical professionals.

We may soon see strikes in Michigan, Washington state, Boston and Philadelphia.

These job actions disrupt patient care, as hospitals bus in traveling nurses to take up the slack. That’s unfortunate — especially if you’re the one waiting for surgery or going to the emergency room. In the long run, though, patients will benefit.

I’ve been a registered nurse for more than half my life, inspired by a beloved aunt, so I get where these nurses are coming from. They’re not asking for luxuries, just the tools and support they need to do their jobs safely and effectively.

The nursing shortage — the U.S. was short 500,000 nurses last year, and the shortage is growing — has created a greater need for patient advocates. It’s a career I’ve been very proud of, and now I’m proud of helping nurses forge their own paths by becoming patient advocates themselves (nurseadvocateentrepreneur.com) to offer the care they were trained for.

Patient advocates can fill some of the gap, but not all of it. Nurses are standing up not only for themselves, but also their patients. When one nurse is stretched too thin, the patients feel it. When burnout becomes the norm, care suffers. When safety concerns are ignored, everyone is at risk.

I hope all of these medical professionals return to their jobs soon, with greater safeguards and better patient safety.

• Teri (Dreher) Frykenberg, R.N., a registered nurse and board-certified patient advocate, is the founder of www.NurseAdvocateEntrepreneur.com, which trains medical professionals to become successful private patient advocates. She is the author of “How to Be a Healthcare Advocate for Yourself & Your Loved Ones” and her new book, “Advocating Well: Strategies for Finding Strength and Understanding in Health Care,” available at Amazon.com. Contact her at Teri@NurseAdvocateEntrepreneur.com to set up a free phone consultation.