Dozens of UPMC Altoona nurses and people from the area gathered in front of the UPMC Altoona hospital Wednesday night to protest against what they call unsafe working conditions for staff and patients alike.
Protest organizers say about 500 nurses at UPMC Altoona, who are union members of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, started negotiating for a new union contract on October 9. The current contract expires December 31.
Jaime Balsamo, a registered nurse in the cardiac catheterization lab at UPMC Altoona, was one of the speakers at Wednesday’s protest. She’s worked at the hospital for 17 years.
“We're fighting a worsening crisis and severe understaffing, burnout, exhaustion and turnover,” Balsamo said.
UPMC paid $250 million in 2013 to acquire the Altoona Regional Health System, as it was previously known. Balsamo, along with other speakers at the event, said the company hasn’t fulfilled its original promise to invest in the community.
“Since the takeover, nurse positions have plummeted by 300,” Balsamo said. “The total number of other staff has dropped as well. Our trauma center status was downgraded. Emergency wait times have soared.”
Paula Cain, a registered nurse in the operating room, said it’s not unusual to work 12 or 14 hour shifts.
“I recently had one coworker who came in to start her shift at 6:45 in the morning,” Cain said. “She worked a double shift and then had to come in the next day at 6:45 to start her next shift.”
Cain also referenced UPMC’s recent announcement to open a nursing school in partnership with Saint Francis University. Hospital leaders say it’s a move to ease the nursing shortage in the region. Cain, though, is skeptical.
“That announcement is not going to fix our understaffing crisis,” Cain said. “Not even close. I've seen so many promising young nurses leave our hospital and even leave the medical field completely because of the short staffing. Extreme stress and uncompetitive pay are intolerable.”
Cain said the nursing school announcement is “like UPMC trying to stop a massive hemorrhage with a Band-Aid.”
Elyssa Sitar is another registered nurse at the hospital who said she recently transferred out of the Intensive Care Unit. She said there was little assistance or training for new nurses, and that new nurses often had to take on charge nurse duties to respond to emergencies throughout the hospital.
“You could be absent from the unit for hours, especially if it was a stroke patient,” Sitar said. “From a professional standpoint, I feel I was putting my license at risk. From a moral standpoint… It wears on you.”
UPMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
