After months of talks and protests, Kansas City area nurses get tentative contract
After months of protesting lack of COVID-19 safety measures and staffing shortages during the pandemic, registered nurses at Research and Menorah medical centers have reached a tentative contract agreement with HCA, their union said Monday.
Nurses will vote this week whether to ratify the collective bargaining agreement, after which details of the plan will be made public, said a statement from National Nurses Organizing Committee, an affiliate of National Nurses United.
The contract covers 700 registered nurses at Research Medical Center and Research Psychiatric Center in Kansas City, and 325 at Menorah in Overland Park.
The union said the deal features stronger infectious disease prevention measures for nurses and patients and “economic security improvements” to help retain experienced nurses and recruit new ones.
“In the face of yet another Covid-19 pandemic surge, we are extremely pleased to have achieved additional health and safety protections that have long been critical to ensure safer conditions at our hospital,” Leslie Rogers, a Research RN and member of the negotiating team, said in the statement.
Several times since the start of the pandemic, the nurses have held socially distanced protests and press conferences outside the hospitals to air grievances, saying they lacked personal protective equipment and were short-staffed, so patient care suffered.
HCA officials were not immediately available for comment Monday. But they’ve said previously that their focus has been on protecting employees during the pandemic and ensuring that “our people have enough personal protective equipment.” They’ve also accused the union of creating conflict with protests during “an unprecedented global medical crisis and pandemic.”
At the end of last year, HCA brought volunteer nurses from Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans to work shifts at its local hospitals.
Some have called the pandemic the most difficult time in the professional lives of nurses.
Several of the union events coincided with protests at other HCA hospitals across the country, mostly where contract negotiations were underway.
In June, union nurses at Research and Menorah protested about intensive care nurses taking care of three patients at the same time, which the nurses said compromised patient care.
They also decried high turnover rates. The union said in June that 612 RNs had left the two hospitals since the beginning of 2020.
The settlement follows new contracts brokered for RNs at other HCA hospitals in Florida, North Carolina and Texas, the union said.
Last month, registered nurses at 10 HCA Healthcare hospitals in Florida approved a contract that guaranteed better protective gear, gave paid time off to vote in elections and created a committee to promote diversity, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 11:26 AM.
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