The Nurse Chronicle

On Wednesday, Federal Judge John Adams ordered Affinity Medical Center in Massillon, Ohio to immediately reinstate nurse and union supporter Ann Wayt and to recognize the Ohio National Nurses Organizing Committee as the elected representative of the hospital’s nurses.

  After more than two years and 42 negotiation sessions, 200 nurses at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Massachusetts have been unable to reach an agreement on a new contract.  On Wednesday, the hospital declared that negotiations in its 28-month labor dispute were at an impasse and that it planned to implement its contract proposal without agreement from the nurses.

On Thursday, the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, which represents over 212,000 nurses in the state, announced its support of proposed legislation legalizing medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.  While the American Nurses Association has publicly supported the legalization of medical marijuana for over a decade, Thursday’s announcement marked the first time a major professional medical association in Pennsylvania has publicly supported the legalization of medical marijuana.

Hundreds of nurses at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut will return to work Thursday after being locked out for 18 days following a 4-day strike that began on November 27th. “We want our staff back doing what they do best and for which they are so needed — caring for patients and serving the community,” said Lawrence + Memorial Hospital CEO Bruce D. Cummings in a statement...

In the past two weeks, there have been nurse strikes at hospitals in several states including Pennsylvania, California, Washington and Connecticut. The day before Thanksgiving, over 800 nurses, therapists and technicians at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut went on strike. The strike ended on November 30th but striking nurses have been locked out and are not expected to be allowed to return to work until a new...

Youngstown, Ohio – Nurses at Northside Medical Center returned to the picket line yesterday after some were locked out following a 24-hour strike by over 400 nurses. According to a report by 21 News, the hospital explained that some nurses were not allowed to return to work immediately because temporary replacement nurses were hired for a 3-day period. Lockouts are common following 1-day nurse strikes as hospitals are often unable...

Hurley Medical Center has settled a lawsuit filed by three of its nurses but a second lawsuit by a fourth nurse remains pending. On January 21, 2013, Tonya L. Battle, a nurse employed at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan for the past 25 years filed a lawsuit alleging the hospital reassigned her and other nurses to comply with a father’s request that no African-American nurses be allowed to take...

Nurses have certainly been in the news this week. On Monday, Mary Ann Roser at the Austin-American Statesman reported that about 650 nursing students at Texas State University St. David’s School of Nursing in Round Rock, Texas have been excluded from training at a Seton hospital located across the street from their campus.  Some of them have to drive up to 90 miles to and from their assigned training locations....

A recent report by a national business intelligence firm indicates that demand for registered nurses increased significantly in December 2012.  The report by WANTED Analytics™ notes that the 156,000 registered nurse job ads posted in December 2012 represent a 20% increase over the number of registered nurse job ads posted in December 2011. As is to be expected there are wide regional differences in the nurse job market.  The top three cities...

The prospect of the “Medicare sequester” spending cuts set to take effect on March 1st is causing a number of healthcare employers and nurse staffing agencies to scale back their hiring and recruitment plans as they wait to see what will happen. The “Medicare sequester” is part of a series of automatic federal spending cuts (including a 2% reduction in payments to Medicare providers) that will take effect on March...