Cited: Fierce Health Finance

Of late, Hospital labor relations have resembled that of a thorny rose. Layoffs of 50 or more employees of hospitals reached its highest levels in April. That figure does not include the September 2005 with the hospital shutdowns after hurricane Katrina. The American Medical News reports that mass layoffs continue to impact not only the medical industry but multiple markets and even includes some clinicians that historically have been exempt from layoff.

This month, at least five hospital systems have already announced mass layoffs. Pittsburgh-based West Penn Allegheny Health System has notified the state of Pennsylvania that up to 344 positions are at risk due to its decision to stop providing hospital inpatient and emergency services at Allegheny General Hospital Suburban Campus in Bellevue, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Springfield, Mass.-based Sisters of Providence Health System will lay off 135 full-time employees, including more than 60 patient care technicians, at Mercy Medical Center and other local facilities, reports CBS-3 Springfield News. Community Medical Centers in Fresno, Calif., will lay off 150 employees throughout the health system, reports CBS47-TV. According to the Denver Business Journal, Exempla Healthcare in Denver, which is run by Lenexa, Kan.-based Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, will cut 100 positions, including some patient-care jobs, at Saint Joseph Hospital and other facilities. And Maricopa Integrated Health System in Phoenix has laid off 87 employees as part of a move to trim 145 positions, reports the Arizona Republic.

Given this landscape, hospital executives could be forgiven for assuming that labor is plentiful and compliant. However, nurses are on the brink of becoming an endangered species, reports the Washington Post. Roughly one-third of nurses are at least 50 years old, and 55% expect to retire within 10 years, according to a survey by the Bernard Hodes Group. Nursing programs aren’t churning out graduates fast enough to replace those pending departures (to the tune of a projected 300,000-nurse shortage), says Peter Buerhaus, a professor at Vanderbilt University. Current turnover rates also are problematic. Florida lost three registered nurses for every five the state added over the past two years, and the annual nursing turnover at Florida hospitals averages 15% according to the Florida Center for Nursing, reports the Miami Herald.

Nor are nurses compliant. Fresh off a June 10 one-day strike, some 12,000 nurses in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area will decide on June 21 whether to conduct a full open-ended strike, reports the Star Tribune. (66% of the nurses must vote yes, and the union would have to give the 14 hospitals involved in the stalled contract negotiations at least 10 days notice prior to a second walkout.) However, the union also has expressed a willingness to bend on its demands and has invited the hospitals to resume negotiations on June 22. A judicial order prevented the California Nurses Association (CNA) from participating in the one-day June 10 strike at University of California (UC) medical centers. However, the CNA continues to press its case for better staffing while awaiting a June 18 hearing that will determine whether its nurses can strike legally at UC facilities, reports the Bay Citizen.

Adding to the woes of hospital management, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Unemployment Compensation has decided that the nurses and other staff who earlier this year held a 28-day strike at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia are eligible for unemployment compensation because the strike was technically a lockout, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The decision, which Temple will appeal, states that “unilateral modification of an existing collective bargaining agreement by an employer constitutes a lockout under the law and allows an employee to receive benefits.”

To add to the labor problems, lawsuits over unpaid meal breaks have become the trend for some employees. Hospitals owned by Nashville Tenn.-based HCA Inc., Northeast Methodist Hospital in Live Oak, Texas and Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kansas, have to employees that have filed lawsuits against HCA for requiring them to work during unpaid meal breaks, according to Nashville Business Journal. These employees are seeking class-action status.

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My Take: As someone who may need critical care due to a disability, I am glad I do not live in California or Minnesota. It seems that people are going to be contacting Bronx nursing home abuse lawyer if nurses in nursing homes go on strike as well. Patients will not get the care they need. And emergency rooms will be seeing a NYC slip and fall lawyer coming in to see their client.

Nurses on strike will cause a lot of problems in hospitals and clinics in both states. A wrongful death lawyer will probably obtain a few cases because of this, mainly because patients did not have the proper care when needed. I doubt the truck accident lawyers will see an increase in clients, because of this, but some lawyers will.

Many hospitals utilize some form of accounting services and their accounting is going to go crazy. Good  accounting services will be able to handle the unusual situation, but others will not. At least nurses don’t need to worry about obtaining tax return preparation accountants at this time a year.

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Other Resources

Number of Jobs Added

It is always interesting to see the number of new jobs added to the economy each month during the recovery and one of the most outstanding parts of the close of 2011 was the fact that there was a nice amount of increase regarding the number of jobs that were put into the market and the number of jobs that staffing services had to fill. Reports suggest that at least two hundred thousand jobs were added to the economy in the United States in December alone which was good news for the economy as a whole as this was a significant jump over other months.

Low Impact Exercising

Many women who find out that they are pregnant are told that they need to not engage in any sort of exercising that they are not otherwise used to but some women are finding that engaging in prenatal Pilates is a great way to enhance health during pregnancy because it’s a good low impact exercising option. Some women might otherwise have a very stressful exercise program and sometimes this isn’t appropriate while pregnant unless a woman clears various types of exercises with her doctor before starting any sort of exercise plan after becoming pregnant and for the duration of the pregnancy.