Retaliation is a real issue in nursing (Page 63)

Nurses throughout Minnesota know of instances of employers intimidating and retaliating against staff for a wide variety reasons, like reporting unsafe staffing,  speaking up when they disagree with a program or pilot, reporting managerial unethical or illegal behavior, engaging in union activities, and many more.

These types of incidents can cause managers and administration some headaches, but they are all part of the ebb and flow of the employer-employee relationship. Unless, of course, the employee is punished for legal and ethical actions.

Unfortunately, retaliation in the workplace is all too commonplace – and not just in hospitals.

For nurses, the opportunities for retaliation are higher than in many other fields. In addition to issues with employers over the way they conduct business, nurses’ licenses require them to follow an additional set of rules that often contradict their employers. They are responsible for ensuring that every assignment they accept is safe for the patient, refusing overtime if they don’t feel safe, and reporting situations in which a patient is injured or in grave danger.

Because of that, the opportunities for “disappointing” the employer increase in the nursing field, as are the opportunities for retaliation.

Some recent examples show that retaliation in the healthcare field is not improving:

  • The National Labor Relations Board issued a formal complaint last October against North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale for harassing and intimidating staff for their participation in an informational picket calling for safe staffing levels. The hospital fired one employee, revoked work agreements and forced employees to work weekends, “repeatedly interrogated” staff about their union activities and falsely claimed that talking about union activities was prohibited.
  • A nurse at another Metro hospital was recently targeted by management and her CNO for speaking up about a pilot project that she and many others thought was endangering patient safety. After her union colleagues protested, the nurse was asked to “review hospital policy” that she never violated in the first place.
  • After a nurse filed a Concern for Safe Staffing form, she was called into the office and asked why she went to the union with her concerns. The nurse defended her actions, and said her union was the proper place to share concerns. The hospital attempted to terminate her a short time later, but MNA rose to her defense.
  • A nurse who refused an unsafe assignment was berated in front of colleagues, pulled into a manager’s office and berated some more. Other nurses were so upset at the treatment, that they stood up and defended the member.

As you can see, hospitals have many ways to retaliate against nurses and other staff.

The good news is that nurses do not have to put up with this. The law and your union – your colleagues –  are on your side.

It’s illegal for employers to retaliate against you for any concerted activity about the terms and conditions of employment, such as speech or other actions that don’t disrupt the workplace in a private or public facility; and it’s especially illegal for employers to retaliate against nurses for blowing the whistle on a situation that in the nurses’ professional judgment risks patient safety.

If you have experienced workplace retaliation, share you story with us.

Nurses throughout Minnesota know of instances of employers intimidating and retaliating against staff for a wide variety reasons, like reporting unsafe staffing,  speaking up when they disagree with a program or pilot, reporting managerial unethical or illegal behavior, engaging in union activities, and many more.

These types of incidents can cause managers and administration some headaches, but they are all part of the ebb and flow of the employer-employee relationship. Unless, of course, the employee is punished for legal and ethical actions.

Unfortunately, retaliation in the workplace is all too commonplace – and not just in hospitals.

For nurses, the opportunities for retaliation are higher than in many other fields.
… Read more about: Retaliation is a real issue in nursing  »

Filing Concern for Safe Staffing Forms and speaking out about unsafe staffing do make a difference. Just ask Surgical/Trauma/Neuro RNs at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Nurses mobilized and forced the hospital to end a pilot program in the STN unit that increased the number of patients a nurse cared for at one time.

The pilot was implemented in January 2015 without Nurses’ input. They knew from day one the pilot was endangering patient safety and stretching each nurse too thin.

The increased number of patients was “overwhelming” to the nurses and other staff.

“You can’t keep track of that many people,” said RN Sue Oberg.
… Read more about: HCMC RNs stop 'really awful' situation  »

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By Mathew Keller RN JD, Regulatory and Policy Nursing Specialist

It is with growing concern that MNA has received reports of increasingly ineffective charge nurse utilization in our hospitals.  If you’ve been in nursing for more than a few years, you’ve seen the trend yourself: charge nurses have quickly gone from having no patient assignment, to having a few admits or discharges as needed, to always having half of an assignment, to always having a full assignment… to having two floors?

This alarming new trend is to assign the nurse variously described as a given unit’s “resource,” “foreperson,” and “air-traffic controller” to two units at once.
… Read more about: Is this the End of the Charge Nurse as We Know It?  »

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By Mathew Keller RN JD, Regulatory and Policy Nursing Specialist

With Minnesota’s medical cannabis law set to take effect on July 1, Minnesota nurses will likely be asked to administer medical marijuana in the hospital setting.  But are you ready to do so?  Here’s what you need to know about the new law.

  • Patients will not receive a medical marijuana “prescription” from a physician or APRN. Instead, a patient’s provider will certify that the patient has a medical condition that qualifies for medical cannabis use.  The patient will then need to register with the Minnesota Department of Health in order to be eligible to utilize the medication.
  • … Read more about: Are you ready to administer marijuana?  »

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By Mathew Keller RN JD, MNA Nurse Practice & Policy Specialist

In a cost-cutting move, many Minnesota hospitals are asking registered nurses to take on more pharmacy duties. Where there may have once been pharmacy staff available 24/7 to answer questions, compound pharmaceuticals, and dispense medications, many nurses are finding that such coverage is now limited to 9-5 with an outsourced pharmacist in another city (or state) available by telephone after hours to answer questions and certify prescriptions. This can lead to potentially dangerous situations for patients as well as nurses’ licenses when nurses are asked to dispense and/or compound medications in the absence of a pharmacist.
… Read more about: Practice Alert: Should nurses be filling the Pyxis?  »

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By Mathew Keller, RN JD, MNA Nurse Practice & Policy Specialist

“Samuel’s Law,” under consideration in the South Carolina Senate, would require the South Carolina Board of Nursing to revoke a nurse’s license “upon the board’s finding that a licensed nurse misreads the physician’s order and overmedicates or undermedicates a patient.”

While the circumstances surrounding the introduction of Samuel’s Law, involving the fatal overmedication of a 7-year old, are tragic, the bill is an inappropriate response and does nothing to correct the systems-level failures that are often the basis of medication errors.

As a systemic review of 54 studies on medication errors puts it, since “nurses find themselves as the ‘last link in the drug therapy chain’ where an error can reach the patient, they have traditionally been blamed for errors. 
… Read more about: Proposed Law Would Revoke Licensure for Medication Errors  »

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By Mathew Keller, RN JD, MNA Nurse Policy Specialist

When cuts are made to public insurance programs, we all end up paying more.  Just the other day I heard the story of Mary*, a young woman who found some unusual lumps in her breast.  Having already had her preventive care exam for the year, she could not afford the high cost of following up with her physician.  When she was finally able to get her next annual exam, Mary got the heartwrenching news that she had Stage 4 breast cancer.

MinnesotaCare, a public health insurance program for the working poor, is under threat from state legislators in the House of Representatives.
… Read more about: Minnesota nurses oppose MNCare repeal  »

Legislative Update May 1, 2015

House HHS Omnibus Bill
Tuesday night, the House passed its Health and Human Services omnibus bill (HF 1638). The bill includes many of MNA’s issues in various forms:

MinnesotaCare is dropped all together. This is the insurance program for about 90,000 Minnesotans who make too much money for Medicaid but not enough to buy insurance through an exchange (approximately 134-200% of the Federal Poverty Level or about $40,000 for a family of four). Another bill, HF 848, includes tax credits for those dropped from MinnesotaCare to get coverage through the private market or MNsure.  Unfortunately, the proposed credits aren’t nearly enough to provide an equal level of care. 
… Read more about: (Untitled)  »

Legislative Update April 24, 2015

 

Biennenial Budget

With less than a month to go in the 2015 Legislative Session, there’s little consensus on the next state budget, and healthcare is the biggest argument. Even though the state has a $1.9 billion surplus, the GOP’s proposed budget provides for $2 billion in tax cuts and cuts $1 billion from Health and Human Services.  House Republicans want to slash healthcare so they can give cuts to big business, including eliminating the corporate property tax altogether.

Rep. Matt Dean’s (R-Dellwood) proposal is to drop MinnesotaCare entirely.  MinnesotaCare is the insurance program for about 90,000 Minnesotans who make too much money for Medicaid but not enough to buy insurance through an exchange.  
… Read more about: Legislative Update April 24, 2015  »