Business leaders have renewed their demand for a review of nurses’ and other public sector pensions, calling for a shift from “unsustainable” final salary schemes.
A report by the CBI says a more affordable system is needed if the “trillion pound burden” on the taxpayer is to be contained.
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“NORTH ADAMS — Unionized health care workers at North Adams Regional Hospital voted to authorize a strike in 10 days unless a contract is reached beforehand.Service Employees International Union 1199 will present their notice to hospital executives this morning when contract negotiations resume.
Of the chapter’s 174 members, 152 cast ballots Monday with 134, or 88 percent, voting for the strike.
“We’re sending a strong message to management and the Board of Trustees that we are to be taken seriously and that we want these negotiations to be over with,” Michael O’Brien, local chapter chairman, said Monday.
“Our membership voted in favor of the strike because they want to have some control over their work lives. With our current contract, they have that. What management wants to do is to take control out of our hands totally. We want to get back to working with the hospital’s administration and get out of the financial hole it’s in.”"
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The Australian Nursing Federation says they are worried about patients who are left in corridors or waiting areas without monitors or other equipment.
“Nurses have told us they have cried at the end of their shifts,” said union official Elizabeth Dabars.
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A kind of fun story this! A hospital in Florida, Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System, is planning to replace the audible alarms with Iphones. It hopes that it will bring quieter and more precise communication among the nurses in the hospital! “On the floor where the iPods were deployed, the hospital reduced overhead pages from 172 in eight hours to 38. The 25 deployed iPods were receiving 4,000 messages per day.”
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Well, it’s hard to not know about the massive shortage of nurses in the USA right now. Even a quick search of any terms like “us nursing shortage 2009″ shows the frankly worrying numbers. Quite simply, there isn’t enough nurses per hospital in the United States.
So what’s the US goverment doing about it? All they can right now. More funding to train nurses, improve the wages and so on. They are also trying to lure more nurses from other countries in to the United States to help fill the positions.
So, I’m interested if any of you have been affected by it at all? Do you work in the USA and feel patient care is suffering, or do you work in a different country and want to become a nurse in the USA? As always feel free to talk about it in length in the forums, which can be accessed via the links at the top and right of the site.