What’s going on at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital?
It would appear that the California Nurses Association (C.N.A.) has set its “sights” on Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital. Now by setting their “sights” on Henry Mayo Newhall, I don’t mean that they’re planning to try and unionize the hospital, because the C.N.A. already represents the RNs at Henry Mayo Newhall. What I mean is that I think they’re laying the groundwork for some serious arm-twisting in advance of the next contract negations. What? Pray tell would lead me to think such a thing. Simply put, an article that I believe the C.N.A. had planted in The Signal, the area’s local paper this past March.
The article was entitled “Nurses challenge staffing” laid out for all to read that the C.N.A.-represented nurses were accusing the hospital for failing to meet our state mandate nurse-patient ratio and this action as reported in the paper “poses a danger to patients”. Oh my! I find it interesting that nursing unions always seem to be quick to cry “poses a danger to patients” whenever they want to get in the paper or on TV and this cry makes sense because everyone’s ears perks up when they hear that something or someone “poses a danger to patients”.
As I read the paper I began to suspect a more choreographed press release rather than an article for several reasons.
- The first being that the reporter incorrectly reported that RN’s receive a college degree in Registered Nursing, and when I reported this error to the paper’s editor there appeared no attempt to correct the error, didn’t publish my letter to the editor dealing with the error and the reporter (for whom I left several messages) never responded to my phone call.
- The second, and perhaps most interesting, was the statement that the RNs came to The Signal to discuss what they “saw as the dangers of team nursing” on the condition on anonymity but brought along their C.N.A. representative to vouch for their credentials. Why did they need the C.N.A. representative to vouch for their credentials, since all they needed to produce was their valid California RN license and their Henry Mayo Newhall identification, and if necessary proof they were C.N.A. members. I think that the C.N.A. representative was there to ensure that the nurses stuck to the script, and The Signal fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
All in all, the article painted a grim picture of brave and overworked nurses struggling to do their job and provide appropriate care for their patients. However as a nurse with almost four decades of experience under my belt I found it hard to buy some of their “poor me” stories. Such as the one “Helen” tells of “I don’t know any of the meds my patient got today. Because all the thousands of medications we give to patients each day.” Really? Thousands of medications each day – how many patients does she have each day? 100? I’m a NICU/PCIU nurse and in some cases I’ve had to deliver complicated medication regimes and in my entire career I’ve never had to administer thousands of medications to my patients every day – come on! And even if a nurse did have to deliver thousands of medications to their patients every day no one would expect them to remember, but they would be expected to be able to report from the patient’s medical records what had been administered during their shift. This is why we record our actions in the patient’s medical chart, and in some of the more technologically up to date hospitals we simply scan the medication barcode and the patient’s id barcode and the computer updates the record.
In all likelihood there are underlying nursing management issues at Henry Mayo Newhall, especially when I learned that Mr. Larry Kidd, RN was the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) and Vice-President for Patient Care Services. He was brought in by the Camden Group as their CNO in their failed attempt to help the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to turn around and save King/Drew Medical Center (KDMC) – and we all know how that story ended. So I wouldn’t be surprised if competent and experienced nurses had issues with his management of the nursing department. Even I had issues with his management of the nursing department during the failed turn-around of KDMC, so no surprise there. I can also empathize with their dislike of team nursing, because I’ve never been a fan of team nursing. I’ve always found that team-nursing without clear lines of communication and strong management often devolved into chaos with no nurse stepping up to take leadership responsibility and everyone pointing to the other with the explanation that I thought it was their job?
You can find a copy of The Signal article and my response LTE TS Henry Mayo
