NORTHAMPTON — Signs in front lawns and on storefronts have called front-line workers, like nurses, heroes. But the nurses union at Cooley Dickinson Hospital says its members don’t feel that they are being treated that way by their employer.
“Our message today is very simple: Protect the front line not the bottom line,” Candie St. Jean — a registered nurse and case manager and chairwoman of the nurses’ bargaining committee — said to a group of about 80 people gathered outside the hospital on Wednesday afternoon.
The union, part of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, gathered members and supporters for an informational picket to call attention to issues it has with Cooley Dickinson and with Mass General Brigham, a statewide health care network that owns the local hospital. The nurses say there are issues of staffing, wage and retirement contribution freezes, and a lack of personal protection equipment.
“The main message is that we need safe staffing,” St. Jean said in an interview before the event, adding that nurses are assigned too many patients. “The patients that are hospitalized right now are sicker than ever. Many of them have waited during the pandemic to seek care.”
Nurses say there’s also a lack of protective equipment. “Staff, as far as we know, are still being asked to reuse their N95,” St. Jean said.
Danielle Smith, a nurse at Cooley Dickinson, said that after they are worn, N95 masks are sent for decontamination and then worn again. This process happens five times, she said. “In my experience, the quality doesn’t hold up for five wears.”
The MNA said in a statement that there are issues with the visitor policy. “Hospital management has not supported adequate screening of all visitors or making sure there is compliance around the number of visitors allowed to enter,” the statement reads.
Michael Batura, who has been a nurse at the hospital for 37 years, said nurses suggested visitors get temperature checks and that visitors coming from COVID-19 hot spots be screened. Those suggestions, he said “have gone unheeded by the executives who are not even in the hospital, or at the bedside of the hospital.”
Smith said it has fallen to her to make sure some visitors wear masks when she is “already underwater in this work.”
When asked about the hospital’s staffing, policy on reusing masks, what it is doing to screen visitors, and if it is proposing freezing wages and retirement contributions, among other questions, the hospital sent a statement from Dr. Angela Belmont, the chief nursing officer.
The hospital “has been safely and appropriately staffed to care for all patients before and during the COVID-19 crisis, and now,” it reads. “Staffing patterns are comparable to the excellent hospitals throughout our state.”
Supply of PPE ” has been adequate and readily available,” Belmont said. “We monitor supplies of PPE daily and have processes in place to purchase additional supplies, if there is an increase in demand.” The statement adds, “We are grateful to Cooley Dickinson nurses who have worked through the surge of the pandemic and who continue to care for our community every day.”
The union was bargaining a new contract and negotiations were put on pause due to the pandemic, but they will soon be restarting, according to St. Jean and a Cooley Dickinson spokesperson.
A spokesperson for Mass General Brigham, formerly known as Partners HealthCare, said that in June, it did freeze pay increases and retirement benefits for those who make more than $26.50 per hour “to help mitigate the financial challenges we face” and that retirement contributions would begin again for some plans in October and others in December.
“Mass General Brigham has lost approximately $800 million in patient service revenue through May,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Executives also took a yearlong 25% pay cut, and officials estimate that in total, the cost-saving measures will save $500 million, according to a spokesperson.
The MNA said the health system has had recent profitable years — at the end of fiscal year 2019, it had $485 million in income, the Boston Globe reported.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.
This story has been updated to reflect that Danielle Smith said N95 masks are decontaminated and then worn again. She was misquoted in an earlier version of this article.