GREENFIELD — After five weeks as acting president of Baystate Franklin Medical Center, Baystate Noble President Ron Bryant says he does not believe the nurses at the Greenfield hospital are being overworked.
“We look at our staffing ratios, just like every other organization, and we staff accordingly,” he said in an interview with the Recorder this week.
He now faces a one-day nurse’s strike and a three-day lockout of those nurses. For Bryant, whether it’s labor relations or just getting to know the people he works with, it’s a process.
“At Noble, after 7 years, there’s a process that was in place. We worked through that process and that process worked at Noble hospital,” said Bryant, who has been at the Westfield hospital since 2011. “They’re both the same processes. It’s just we have to go through that at Baystate Franklin like we went through that at Noble hospital.
“Noble hospital didn’t go through the extent that they’re going through at Baystate Franklin, but there was a relationship after 7 years,” he said, “I don’t have that relationship here. All I know is, what we have here is the process we have to deal with.”
Bryant became interim president of the hospital in Greenfield in the middle of negotiations that are now in their 16th month. He said meeting Baystate Franklin staff has filled the majority of his time in the past five weeks.
Bryant did not offer specifics about the negotiations. “We’ve gotten to the point where there’s a federal mediator and we have to go through that,” he said.
In the recent interview, Bryant repeatedly emphasized the hospital’s mission to be patient care.
“Our core mission is to take care of the patients who live in our community,” Bryant said. “That’s what we do. That’s what physicians do. That’s what the nurses do. That’s what techs do. That’s what administrators care about. And that’s the common bond.”
When asked if the nurses are overworked to a point where they cannot provide the best care possible, his answer was clear.
“No, the nurses are not overworked that they can’t do that to the best of their degree,” Bryant said.
Among the complaints the nurses have repeatedly raised publicly is that nurses too often are asked to work long shifts and can be responsible for too many patients.
Bryant didn’t offer any ideas on when these negotiations might end, but he said, “You’re looking at a guy who always sees the glass half full, so I always hope there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Following a rejection by hospital officials of an offer by U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern to host negotiations between the two parties, local members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association called for a one-day strike on Feb. 28, starting at 7 a.m. Saying they can only contract for replacement nurses for a three-day minimum, hospital officials are planning to lock out the nurses for three days around the strike day.