Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. Sept. 17, 2023. Paul Goldfinger photo. Blogfinger.net
Internet photo.9/17/23
Paul Goldfinger, MD, FACC. Dean at Blogfinger Off-Shore Medical School in Ocean Grove, NJ
On August 29 we reported on an unbelievable nurses’ strike, today in its 6th week, at the Rutgers Campus in New Brunswick. Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. You can read that post:
Since then the strike has reached an impossible stalemate and is one of the longest nurses strikes in US history.
This 900 bed facility rolls ahead by hiring “traveling or replacement nurses.” They acquire this staffing by using agencies across the country which rent nurses wherever they are needed. All working nurses at RWJ today are outsiders.
We interviewed several of those “rent-a-nurses” today and we had some care for a member of our family.
Mostly these seem to be young RN’s. (eg 25-40) who come from all over the US. We met some from NY state, Tennessee, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. Typically they are people who are experienced, very confident in their nursing skills, strong personalities, a taste for adventure, excitement, and a pay scale that is hard to refuse.
One young woman from Memphis told me that she loves exploring all over the US. She has been at this gig for a few months now. RWJ supplies her with lodging, typically Airbnb, transportation, and generous pay such that she can work for 6 months at a wonderful income and then take off for 6 months. She quickly made friends here, and some went touring in NYC; and she loved it. The hospital paid to ship her truck to her.
Another RN from the Hudson River Valley has a daughter who will be needing mom and dad to pay for her forthcoming wedding. In addition she and her husband are building a new home, so she does this work because she loves it and the pay is great. She stays in hotels.
Eileen and I spoke to some strikers marching and speaking in front of the hospital, and they were all women. They tell us that one of their main slogans is “safe staffing.” This is about the need to assign fewer patients, especially in departments like ICU, per nurse.
“Safe Staffing” is about safer and higher quality care for patients, but also about the health of nurses who are being driven into the ground by burdensome work loads.
There seems to be a national movement afoot because nurses strikes are popping up all over the country. This story will continue to multiply.
When I started out in medicine, nurses didn’t complain much, and doctors were not willing to consider unions to air their grievances. It was not considered to be ethical. I would never consider joining one, nor for that matter, agree to advertising our services.
But now, given increasing problems in healthcare, many of which reflect on physicians, those attitudes may soon change. And another major factor is corporatization which has changed the dynamics for everyone working in this field.
If you enter the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital lobby, you will see a chaotic appearing facility which almost resembles an ant hill, but you have to look closer:
a. Walk in the front door and you bump into the entrance to Rutgers Medical School with obvious house staff (residents) looking sharp in long white coats and smartly moving quickly in and out, medical students, professor types in suits, nurses and all sorts of medical personnel rushing with purpose in all directions. We found that all activities seem to be expertly organized. I wonder who designs all those functions.
b. Despite the fact that most nurses in this hospital are temporary hires, they are performing at a high level, so the only ones who seem to be deeply dissatisfied are the strikers; but public opinion is increasingly angry with the hospital judging from media coverage.
c. How do they bring on all these new nurses and get them functioning at a first class level of competence? I figured it out: Aside from the high pay, evident respect, happiness factor, and enthusiasm, these nurses are all specialists.
For example they hire them not only because of their RN credentials, but they are also hired according to specialties: eg OR, Recovery Room, Surgical Preparation, etc. So a specialist, eg an ER nurse, may come from a North Dakota ER, but she can be be plunked down into the RWJ ER and be functioning just fine within a few days of orientation.
d. I also spoke to a three doctors there, 2 surgeons and one anesthesiologist, and they all seemed to be satisfied despite the strike, the crowded neighborhood, the teeming facility where serious construction is ongoing inside, and all the replacement nurses.
BUT…This strike has to end because, in the face of a nationwide nursing shortage, RWJ may pay a high price in the future since New Jersey nurses will remember this strike, and RWJ may find themselves with a recruiting and public relations problem.
FATS DOMINO from American Graffiti
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