Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester said Wednesday it will begin scaling back services due to an ongoing strike by nurses who are demanding improved staffing ratios.
The announcement follows two 7-hour negotiation sessions between striking nurses and the hospital’s parent company, Tenet Healthcare, last week, that failed to resolve the strike, that has been going on since March.
In a statement released Wednesday morning, Tenet says the hospital will be reducing inpatient and outpatient capacity, including reducing 80 inpatient beds and pausing outpatient cardiac rehab and wound care. The hospital normally has about 380 beds. Among the reductions, the hospital will eliminate 10 inpatient psychiatric beds, half the current capacity, and eliminate two of eight surgical units.
As the strike passes the 20-week mark, “it has become unsustainable to maintain all of the services that have been provided since it began on March 8,” the hospital said. “By preserving core services now, Saint Vincent Hospital will be able to sustain operations and continue that commitment and performance.”
The hospital says it plans to resume full services once the strike ends.
In a statement, the Massachusetts Nursing Association said the call to reduce services is a ploy to intimidate nurses and avoid accountability.
“[Nurses] were dismayed to see the hospital’s threat to scale back services and once again, compromise care for the residents of Greater Worcester when there are 700 nurses outside the hospital ready and willing to get back into the building to provide the care and services their patients expect and deserve,” the MNA said.
The nurses strike is the second longest in Massachusetts history. While the strike officially began on March 8, nurses have been pushing for increased staffing levels since February 2019, when over 70 percent of nurses signed and delivered a petition to Tenet.
Nurses are negotiating for a new contract that would include staffing levels consistent with other hospitals in the state, such as nearby UMass Memorial Medical Center. In the year leading up to the strike, nurses filed more than 600 reports of unsafe staffing conditions that were jeopardizing patient safety and care. The Massachusetts Nursing Association says improved staffing guidelines would resolve these issues, which have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
