The negatives of nursing strikes

The article “Do Strikes Kill?” published online at philly.com discloses information on a recent study that evaluated more than 20 years of nursing strikes in New York hospitals and the quality of care given to patients during the strikes.

The authors, Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor working with a Carnegie Mellon University student, found that "in-hospital deaths rose by 19.4 percent and re-admissions by 6.5 percent for patients treated during strikes,” according to the article.

Quality care declines

"It clearly is about the nurses not being there or about the same quality of nurses not being there," Gruber said when asked why striking hospitals showed such statistics.

Although he had no solutions for making patient care safer during a strike, he added that the study is "a cautionary tale that this strike has costs for patient treatment, and moving a strike to resolution is an important goal for making sure hospital quality is maintained."

Untrained or inexperienced replacement staff

The importance of a nurse’s job is never more evident than during a strike. A hospital may hire temps, travel nurses, new graduates or nurses who’ve been out of nursing for a while, and they all will help to keep the hospital running and the patients cared for, but experience and training is often lacking, which endangers the patients' quality of care.

Disoriented temporary staff

Working during a strike is a stressful, emotional experience, and even though nurses willing to cross the strike line are often staying in luxurious hotels and pulling down extraordinary salaries, it’s hard to happily step into another nurse’s shoes with the angst and ire of the strikers right outside your window. Patient care suffers.

Lingering bitterness

Even after a strike has been settled, persistent feelings of hurt, disgust and anger may exist from both the strikers and the management and can affect patient care.