Chronic short-staffing imposed by Ascension hospital management – a practice that began well before the Covid-19 pandemic to boost profits and executive compensation – makes it challenging for nurses to provide the highest quality of care to their patients because it drastically limits how much time a nurse can spend on each patient. Short-staffing also creates a revolving door of nursing staff, who suffer moral injury and distress because they can’t provide the care they know results in the best patient outcomes.
“Union nurses across Ascension stand united for our patients and against management’s profiteering,” Lisa Watson, a registered nurse in the medical intensive care unit at Ascension via Christi St. Francis Hospital in Wichita. “It’s disrespectful to be asked to take care of more patients with fewer resources. These conditions have everything to do with management’s decision-making and nothing to do with the excuse of the so-called ‘nursing shortage’ that’s actually a staffing crisis they created.”
Chronic short-staffing imposed by Ascension hospital management – a practice that began well before the Covid-19 pandemic to boost profits and executive compensation – makes it challenging for nurses to provide the highest quality of care to their patients because it drastically limits how much time a nurse can spend on each patient. Short-staffing also creates a revolving door of nursing staff, who suffer moral injury and distress because they can’t provide the care they know results in the best patient outcomes.
“Union nurses across Ascension stand united for our patients and against management’s profiteering,” Lisa Watson, a registered nurse in the medical intensive care unit at Ascension via Christi St. Francis Hospital in Wichita. “It’s disrespectful to be asked to take care of more patients with fewer resources. These conditions have everything to do with management’s decision-making and nothing to do with the excuse of the so-called ‘nursing shortage’ that’s actually a staffing crisis they created.”