Nurses at Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center speak on alleged hostile working environment

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – Nurses at Charlie Norwood are talking out about what they’re calling a hostile working surroundings.NewsChannel 6 spoke with the top of the native nurses union.

Lengthy working hours and lack of coaching are just some of the complaints coming from a gaggle of nurses right here at Charlie Norwood. They are saying one thing must be finished earlier than sufferers right here start struggling too. 

“There’s a veteran who we take care of day by day who deserves the very best care that we may give them,” mentioned Irma Westmoreland.

Irma Westmoreland is a registered nurse at Charlie Norwood VA Medical heart. She’s additionally the president of the native nurses union. She says nurses at Charlie Norwood are feeling disrespected and undervalued.

She says, “We’ve got been detailing nurses from place to position to cowl holes in staffing and detailing nurses for 90 days  six months 9 months. A few of these particulars are voluntarily and a few aren’t.”

Westmoreland says the large situation with the detailing on the medical heart is, that they’re placing inexperienced nurses in areas that they’ve by no means labored earlier than with out enough coaching.

“We’ve had nurses moved from the ambulatory day surgical procedure space to the ICU to care for sufferers within the step-down unit and so they’ve by no means taken care of these sorts of sufferers earlier than,” she mentioned.

She says it’s like making a plastic surgeon do a neurosurgeon’s job. She says usually nurses would obtain a 30-day discover of a element change and inside these 30 days, there’s coaching for that element, however that protocol is now not being adopted. 

“Generally they have been detailed after which the coaching didn’t begin for days and days after that,” she mentioned.

The element adjustments are a results of a staffing scarcity. The Nationwide Nurses Union says that greater than 85 nurses have left Charlie Norwood VA Medical Heart inside the previous 6 months. That’s additionally known as for different nurses to work longer hours.

She says, “There’s been legal guidelines on the books to repair it, like different work schedules. Working three 12 hour shifts and nonetheless being paid for 80 hours and that legislation known as 72 for 80 scheduling and it’s been on the books for years and years, however Charlie Norwood doesn’t need to use it.”

And Westmoreland says nurses working lengthy hours to fill holes in staffing is barely placing sufferers in danger.

“While you’re so short-staffed otherwise you’re exhausted from not having the ability to take a break or take a lunch break and even get an enough aid you’re going to make errors. It units  us all up for errors, however on the opposite aspect of that mistake is a veteran who put their life on the road for us,” mentioned Westmoreland.

Westmoreland says she and a gaggle of nurses from Charlie Norwood tried to make their considerations identified to the director with a peaceable demonstration outdoors his workplace, however she says they have been met with barricades and police pressure.

She says. “We have been very peaceable, we simply needed to current our petition that over 3 hundred nurses had signed on the VA concerning the points that now we have. We simply needed to current the petition. We had foam boards  We weren’t allowed to enter the chief suite. We have been informed that if we went up into the chief suite we might be arrested.

NewsChannel 6 handed alongside these considerations to hospital leaders they are saying they’re engaged on a response.