More than 75 percent of the 140 nurses at Wilcox Memorial Hospital cast votes by yesterday afternoon to decide whether to ratify a contract settlement offered by their employers. Nurses with the union, Hawaii Nurses Association, and employees at Wilcox
More than 75 percent of the 140 nurses at Wilcox Memorial Hospital cast votes by yesterday afternoon to decide whether to ratify a contract settlement offered by their employers.
Nurses with the union, Hawaii Nurses Association, and employees at Wilcox Hospital have butted heads over staffing needs for all 140 nurses and contract language for 30 nurses in specialized units.
If the majority of the registered nurses and the licensed practical nurses vote not to ratify the contract, the union will issue a strike vote and nurses will go on strike in 10 days, said Claudine Tomasa, a labor specialist and a registered nurse with the O‘ahu-based nursing organization.
“More (nurses) will be coming down to vote after they get off their shifts today,” Tomasa said.
Nurses began casting votes at the hospital at 7 a.m. yesterday, and by 3 p.m.,107 nurses had cast votes on the proposed contract settlement.
The voting ended at 9 p.m. The results of that vote will be in Thursday’s The Garden Island.
Even if nurses vote to go on strike, negotiators for both sides can still go back to the bargaining table to work out their differences, Tomasa said. A federal negotiator has been sitting in on the contract talks.
The three-year contract for the nurses expired May 31.
Contract negotiations have been going since April. Subsequently, the nurses have demonstrated and carried signs along Kaumuali‘i Highway by the Kukui Grove Shopping Center.
Hospital officials were not available for comment by press time yesterday.
“The nurses are saying money is not the issue, and that staffing has been a problem,” Tomasa said.
Wilcox Hospital does not have “an acuity system to safely staff the hospital (according to the needs of the patients),” Tomasa said.
“Management is just basing the staffing on money,” she said. “If they (management) can cut it short, they cut it short. Who gets the short end of the stick? It is the patient.”
Tomasa said the quality of nursing will suffer without an acuity system in place.
“Where do the people go when they get involved in accidents, motor vehicle accidents, shark-bite incidents?” she asked. “They end up at Wilcox Hospital. All they (the nurses) want is safe health care for Kaua‘i’s people.”
Tomasa said both sides are also at odds over a contract proposal that would affect 30 nurses who work in “special units such as surgical services.”
The nurses have worked at the hospital between five and 15 years.
“The nurses want a retention of nurses,” she said. “If they (Wilcox leaders) push the changes through in the contract, they will lose ‘seasoned nurses.’”
The loss of such nurses would be sorely felt on Kaua‘i, she said. “Kaua‘i doesn’t have the pool of nurses that O‘ahu has, so treat the nurses well,” Tomasa said.
