Emergency department registered nurses at Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent said on Friday that six nurses resigned and more are actively seeking other employment because the “current atmosphere is not healthy to patients and puts their license at risk.”
The nurses, represented by the Maine State Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee, delivered a signed letter to CEO Jeff Zewe on Friday detailing reasons behind nurses seeking new employment, including a hostile work environment.
The letter to Zewe, obtained by the Bangor Daily News on Friday, was signed by the emergency department nurses, including the six who resigned, who said “nurses are walking out of the hospital and are not coming back.”
The emergency department resignations come just months after the union and administration signed a contract two years in the making.
Hospital spokeswoman Pam Sime said on Thursday that other opportunities and a move out of the area were behind the multiple nurse departures. Registered nurse Ami Maxwell, who still works at the hospital, said Sime’s account is accurate, but not complete.
The staffing loss was preventable. The nurses did not want to leave, but chose to look for new positions because it is an “awful toxic” work environment, Maxwell said.
“One of my co-workers has worked at the hospital for 39.5 years and is two years away from retirement,” Maxwell said. “He’s leaving the hospital he has always worked at but he’s leaving because he is fed-up and sad with how things are being run.”
The nurses bargaining unit and hospital administrators have been battling over issues for the past two years at both the Fort Kent facility and Houlton Regional Hospital, which fall under the same management team. As contract negotiations appeared to drag on, especially related to emergency department staffing and patient safety concerns, several nurses expressed frustrations with leadership during multiple strikes and other public actions.
The critical access 25-bed hospital’s emergency department treats approximately 7,000 patients annually, averaging 19 patient visits per day.
At issue for the emergency department nurses, as stated in the letter to Zewe, include a hostile work environment where staff do not feel valued, heard or respected; a lack of communication between administration and staff; high numbers of expensive traveling nurses; staff are pressured into working a shift rotation (a mix of day and night shifts); working short staffed; and changes to scheduling practices.
Sime said that the hospital regularly monitors patient volumes, quality indicators to ensure the emergency department continues to meet the healthcare needs of the community.
“[The hospital] has consistently been recognized for the quality of care provided to our patients and their families,” she said, adding that they have grown services that are needed in the community.
Registered nurse Kim Paradis worked her last shift at the hospital on Saturday. In her 24 years at the Fort Kent hospital, Paradis worked as a certified nursing assistant, a medical surgical registered nurse, manager of inpatient adult and child/adolescent psychiatric units, hospital supervisor and emergency department nurse.
Unfortunately, the communication and relationship between nursing staff and administration deteriorated to a point where communication no longer existed. When the voices of the nurses providing bedside care are no longer heard, patient care becomes vulnerable, Paradis said.
“Walking away from a place where I have invested so much of myself is not something I take lightly,” she said. “It is painful to leave. I cannot compromise my morals, my integrity, or my responsibility and accountability to the patients I serve.”
During union negotiations the hospital was limited by federal law in their ability to communicate with nurses, according to Sime.
“The law limits what management can say to employees during a union campaign and, after employees vote to be represented by a union, management is generally prohibited from discussing wages, hours and working conditions directly with the represented RNs,” she said.
Additionally, because the emergency department was more active in the union negotiations, they have been more “punished” than other departments, Maxwell said, adding that when they asked for resources, the nurses did not get them and other resources they had were taken away.
Maxwell and others who worked on the bargaining committee have been disciplined by administration and have open cases with the National Labor Relations Board because of some of these things, Maxwell said.
The loss of staff impacts patient care, and it also impacts the hospital’s bottom line as more money has to be spent on traveling nurses and on training new staff, according to the letter.
The hospital is offering the traveling nurses $50 an hour and $90 an hour for overtime as well as paid housing for a 16-week contract, according to Maxwell.
The previous administrator, Peter Sirois, was at the hospital for decades and was a part of the community, but things changed when he retired and the board hired Zewe, according to Maxwell and Paradis.
“Things have gotten a lot worse under his administration,” Maxwell said. “If half of the emergency department nurses are leaving, where is the board? Why are they not taking notice? We have reached out to them and have been met by silence. Are there no checks and balances or questioning when so many good people are leaving?”
