"Nurses walk out at Quincy Medical Center" by Robert Weisman and Jessica Bartlett | Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, April 12, 2013
QUINCY — Hundreds of nurses marched in a drizzly chill Thursday, carrying signs, waving union flags, and drumming on plastic bins in a 24-hour strike to dramatize their complaints about staffing levels they say compromise patient safety at Quincy Medical Center.
At least it wasn't snowing like today.
They called in big political guns, notably US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, the South Boston Democrat who is running for US Senate, at a noon rally.
Also see: Senate Election Special: Lynch the Loser
He still should win their votes for this. Where are all the others?
They even rolled out an inflatable Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the underworld. The private equity firm that owns the hospital’s parent, Steward Health Care System, is named after the mythical creature.
Okay, what sick and twisted group names their firm after a hound of hell? Is that an in-your-face move or what?
Related: Sunday Globe Special: The New Steward of Massachusetts Health Care
Why do I feel sick?
“The dog came out of retirement,” said David Schildmeier, spokesman for the Massachusetts Nurses Association, who said the hellhound’s only previous appearance was at a protest last year outside the New York headquarters of Cerberus Capital Management, which formed the Steward hospital and doctors group in 2010.
Inside the hospital, doctors and administrators said it was largely business as usual — except that they canceled elective surgeries for the day and brought in about 60 replacement nurses. They also hired trucks with billboards proclaiming the union was living in the past. Nurses stood in the street trying to block the trucks and attach their own signs to the vehicles.
Oh, they HAD MONEY for TRUCKS to DISRESPECT the NURSES, huh?
“In today’s economy, nurses sitting by empty beds making $52 an hour is not feasible,” said Daniel Knell, who took over in 2011 as president of Quincy Medical Center.
If you were bankers and CEOs it would be.
Btw, Cerberus is one of those firms that buys up institutions, loads them up with debt, takes a big profit and paycheck out of it, then sells it off loaded with debt. And this a**hole is b****ing about the nurses?
At the end of the day, nothing was resolved. Nurses were set to return to their jobs Friday morning without a contract.
I'm sure relations with management will be just fine.
And there was no agreement between the two sides on the basic facts of what prompted the unusual one-day strike. While the nurses cited inadequate staffing, management insisted the union was pushing for higher wages and benefits.
The walkout took place against a backdrop of looming cuts in government funding for Medicare and Medicaid, the public insurance programs for older and low-income people....
Translation: those damn nurses are greedy bitches.
You expected a different diagnosis from my corporate ma$$ media, didja?
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Related:
Quincy Medical Center, nurses far apart as strike nears
Quincy Medical Center prepares for nurses strike
Slow Saturday Special: Quincy Nurses Come Back to Work
Also see:
Some budgets aren't being cut at all!
