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Registered nurses at several Jefferson Health hospitals and centers in the Greater Philadelphia area announced Tuesday that they are unionizing, citing persistent staffing shortfalls, heavier workloads and other issues.
More than 200 staff members across Jefferson Bucks Hospital in Langhorne, and Jefferson Health – Center One and Jefferson Health Willowcrest, both in Philadelphia, have filed to unionize under the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, or PASNAP.
“At the end of the day, our No. 1 priority is making sure our patients receive the safest, highest quality care possible,” said Ashley Bupp, an emergency department registered nurse at Jefferson Bucks Hospital. “We’ve tried to be heard for a long time. Now, we’re coming together to make sure our voices can’t be ignored now or in the future.”
Health workers at the different locations still need to conduct official votes, which require a simple majority to unionize.
If approved and certified, nurses at the Langhorne hospital would form an independent local under PASNAP, which represents more than 11,000 health care workers across Pennsylvania. Nurses at Center One and Willowcrest have filed to join an existing bargaining unit of roughly 1,200 nurses based at Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital.
Burnout and other problems that developed during the COVID-19 pandemic haven’t gotten better, said nurses at Jefferson Bucks.
For example, wait times in the emergency room have grown longer because of a lack of nurses able to staff inpatient beds, said registered nurse Kayla Occhiolini, resulting in delayed health care.
“This is a small community hospital. We need some help instead of patients sitting in the ER until 9 p.m., alone, to get their surgery at 10 o’clock at night. That’s not OK,” said Occhiolini, who works in the operating room. “We need these patients to be taken care of. And Jefferson, we feel, is not doing that for us.”
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In a statement, Jefferson Health accused PASNAP of using “misleading claims and public attacks designed to generate headlines rather than constructive solutions” to drive the union campaigns.
“While PASNAP focuses on promoting a narrative that serves its organizing efforts and ultimately, its own bottom line, Jefferson remains focused on supporting our nurses, caring for our patients, and meeting the health care needs of the communities we serve,” officials stated.
However, registered nurse Kiersten McCalmant, who works on a medical surgical unit at Jefferson Bucks, said concerns brought by staff to management in the past have “just fallen on deaf ears.”
She and her colleagues now hope that they can have a stronger voice in hospital decisions that affect employees and patients with the support of a union and through collective bargaining.
“We deserve consistency and fairness, we deserve a voice in the decisions that affect our jobs and our patients,” McCalmant said. “Together, we’re asking Jefferson to respect that voice and respect this campaign.”