By National Nurses United
RNs at University of Chicago Medical Center call for safe staffing
Registered nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center in Chicago, will hold an action on Thursday, Sept. 15, to highlight their patient safety concerns, announced National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) today. Short-staffing, RN and other staff vacancies, and lack of educational resources create unsafe patient care conditions.
More than 580 nurses have left the UChicago Medical Center since Sept. 13, 2021, including more than 350 since January 2022. Nurses say that the number of vacant nurse positions at UChicago has not fallen below 100 for more than a year and in some months, there were more than 200 vacancies. The high turnover rate has resulted in a significant number of newly hired nurses who are still under orientation and not yet working as staff nurses.
“When patients are in the hospital, we see them in crisis, in pain and needing help,” said Lea Sargent King, a telemetry staff nurse and chair of the RN professional practice committee at UChicago. “When I have too many patients to care for safely this affects my ability to give my patients the care they deserve.”
