RI Hospitals To Blame For Staffing Shortages: Nurses Union

PROVIDENCE, RI — With the Oct. 1 deadline for Rhode Island health care workers to get COVID-19 vaccines just days away, the state's largest nurses union voiced concerns about staffing shortages.

Lynn Blais, the president of United Nurses and Allied Professionals, said staffing issues in Rhode Island hospitals are not a new issue.

"First, we want to reiterate our support for the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in Rhode Island," Blais said. "UNAP members have been on the frontlines fighting the COVID-19 pandemic since day one, and no one has witnessed the massive toll it has taken on Rhode Islanders more so than we have."

Blais said the union supports the mandate because it is a public health issue, and that "Rhode Islanders who need healthcare services should expect to be safe in health facilities."

However, Friday's vaccine deadline is expected to exacerbate staffing shortages, which are hardly a new issue in Rhode Island.

"We want to be clear — staffing shortages in the healthcare field, especially among nurses, have been a problem that began long before this pandemic started," Blais said. "As a union, we are the ones who have called attention to this issue time and again, and we will continue to do so. The root cause of the staffing shortage is simple — hospital management putting profits before patient care. When hospitals are run to make a profit for shareholders and executives, that means bare-bones staffing levels, with no flexibility for leaves of absence, vacancies, or worker illness."

Staffing shortages have been years in the making, Blais said, since "nurses and health professionals have been expected to do more with less" for years.

"The end result is an extremely high level of stress, burnout and staff resignation, along with fewer and fewer people choosing healthcare as a viable career choice. The pandemic did not cause this problem, but has exacerbated it even further," she continued. "It is not the job of nurses and health professionals to properly staff hospitals — it’s our job to provide quality care for our patients. Staffing is the job of hospital administrators."

The union went on to call for hospitals to come up with "immediate, short-term solutions and sustainable, long-term solutions" to shore up the state's health care infrastructure to survive the pandemic and beyond. That includes higher pay and better working conditions, along with better training, recruitment and retention programs.

"That means healthcare companies, hospital executives and administrators investing more in their facilities, equipment, patients, employees and frontline nurses and health professionals," Blais said. "They must create a staffing environment where healthcare workers and patients feel safe, and aren’t spread so thin ... In short, the staffing issues will not be solved until hospital management makes a sustained commitment to putting quality patient care at the center of their health care universe."

Read more:

• RI's Health Care Vaccine Deadline Is Approaching: What To Know
• COVID-19 Vaccines Required For Rhode Island Health Care Workers