Posted on 02/27/2010 7:33:36 PM PST by Saije
The District's largest private hospital has fired 11 nurses and five support staff members who failed to make it to work during the back-to-back snowstorms that paralyzed the region earlier this month.
Dozens of staff members at Washington Hospital Center face internal investigations, union representatives say, and it is unclear how many employees will lose their jobs. On Friday, the nurses union, Nurses United of the National Capital Region, filed a class-action grievance with the hospital.
"I see it as so unfair and uncaring," said Shirley Ricks, a 57-year-old nurse who has spent her entire career at the hospital. "That's it. You call in one day in the biggest snowstorm in history and you're out. No ifs, ands or buts about it. . . . You go from getting a salary every two weeks to nothing. It's scary."
In a letter sent to the staff on Friday, hospital President Harry J. Rider sought to quell rumors that hundreds of people had been fired. He said he expects fewer than 20 people will be dismissed.
"Sadly, we did experience some issue with associates who did not show the same commitment as most of their co-workers to the community, our patients and their fellow associates. They are the few who turned away from their scheduled shifts and who tried -- and are still trying -- to turn the focus on themselves rather than the thousands of Washington Hospital Center workers who fulfilled their commitment to their patients and colleagues, and made it to work," he wrote.
Hospital spokeswoman So Young Pak said she could not comment on specific cases or personnel issues, but "we do not terminate any associates without a fair process. We always review the entire situation with the final decision based on all facts and circumstances."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Hospitals need to be staffed - especially during an emergency. The point is to serve the needs of patients - not the union members.
Certainly, with a little planning, the employees w/o 4WD could have networked with others and made arrangements to get rides to work. OTOH, maybe these few were not dependable employees and now the hospital has a good reason to get rid of them. It's not like these people couldn't walk into any other hospital and not be hired on the spot.
Contrast this with other area hospitals that made way for employees to stay at the hospital ~ very common during these storms.
BTW, the story is this hospital never informed anyone but the doctors of the special hotel rates so nurses who stayed over actually slept on tiled cement floors.
The depth of the snow throughout the Metro area varied from 28" to 48" (by the time the last storm rolled through). We didn't get dug out around here for two weeks and then it took a large Komatsu frontloader (with a thousand horse engine on the back).
Same with parts of Montgomery county, and the residential areas of DC. Many residential streets simply never got dug out.
Like to point out something very important here, residents of DC pay an income tax. They also pay (directly or indirectly through landlords) substantial property taxes. It's the taxpayers money that's used to clear the roads.
In order of priority the DC government cleared the interstates, then the main roads around Capitol Hill (for Nancy Pelosi), then the main roads around the White House and Smithsonian.
Then they began working on the primaries where you find such places as Washington Hospital Center (WHC).
WHC is a nonprofit private foundation. IT PAYS NO TAXES OF ANY KIND.
See where I'm going. WHC, complaining about how its employees got to work, was dug out two weeks before they were! Yet, they paid nothing.
From the standpoint of fundamental equity and fairness (even Republican fairness if you will), WHC doesn't have a leg to stand on. They paid nothing to get dug out yet their employees paid to do that even when they got no service at all for their taxes.
In the future it'd be better to LEAVE WHC piled to the ying-yang with snow and ice and dig out the taxpayers!
I spent a lot of time digging neighbors out of the ice and snow because they thought it was OK to drive on ice without ESC.
It's not.
You would have ended up in the 7 foot drift around the corner ~ and there'd been no one who could help you.
It seems to me you have no idea what happened around here!
That's what the Obamistas are after ~ the untapped revenue source government, foundation, church and school owned hospitals can be.
Obama's crowd intend to tap into it with the tax on "cadillac insurance policies". Those are the ones that pay your hospital bills. The non-cadillac policies have large deductibles and co-pays.
These guys were actually worse before their management team was absorbed into Med-Star.
Besides, no one with any sense builds in such a place. My ancestors who lived in Oswego NY left there 200 years ago due to the snow ~ the NEVER ENDING lake effect snow that can make that stuff you sometimes get in Alaska look like a dusting.
They lived under a 50 foot snow one too many times. If you are doing that time to move!
You ever been in a 48" fall of new, wet, icy snow?
You need a 5 to 15 ton truck to blaze a trail ~ at a minimum.
Not far away (Frederick Maryland) we had motorists and truckers both STUCK on the highway for days. There were people badly hurt up there and no one, not even a helicopter, could get to them.
This was a record breaking snowfall.
I just can't get over the fact they have a management at WHC who is still blissfully unaware of what went on in this region. What they've said and what they've done makes them sound ..... well.... seriously mentally ill.
I don't think people are safe going to WHC.
It's not.
Humana could straighten this place out in a few days ~ first they'd fire the managers. Then they'd fire the managers' wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, and husbands working elsewhere in the hospital.
That seems to have always been the difficulty with WHC ~ management simply isn't prepared to run a hospital.
WHC hasn’t been in the top 5 anywhere for a very long time. The DC area has a good number of high quality hospitals ~ in Fairfax County!
“I notice no government slugs suffered the same fate. They were paid to stay home. What is wrong with this picture?”
I had a gov’t job for years where I was emergency/essential personnel. I was expected to show up or at least try very hard even when the rest of the gov’t was closed. One day when we had about a foot of snow I couldn’t get in. After that I bought a big SUV and never missed a day for weather.
The days that the gov’t was closed, trust me, it was a wise decision. The streets were impassable and I’m sure many lives were saved by telling people to stay home.
Yes I have been in 48” of snow...so your point is...let the patients suffer?
Most of the employees made it to work that morning, I wonder how they did it? Of course some were staff who got stuck in the hospital during the storm. Bet you folks managed to get into the ER for treatment.
You do what you have to do to take care of the patients. I have been a nurse in states that get snow, Michigan and Kansas to name two. Here in Dallas when we get 2” of snow and ice mix people call in. Its common place to find 1 nurse call in, and another come in and they live within 5 blocks of each other.
Don't let Al or Obama find out. You might be in the cross hairs.
Regarding motor vehicles that can scoot around in 48" of snow, they are called large trucks and earth moving equipment.
No, your typical nurse couldn't just go out to the curb, dig her car out, and go anywhere.
In this area the 12 hour nursing shift is standard. No patients were deprived of care. The people who got to work "the next morning" were already there. They stayed. Pretty obvious to anyone in this part of the country there was no way they could get home!
Still, if the hospital wants to get its people to work they'd best pay to get DC streets cleared ~
My mistake. I haven’t lived in the area for about five years now.
A commuter to L'enfant plaza from Springfield could have spent about 18 hours "commuting" to get in 4 hours of work.
Today we wouldn't go to WHC for anything.
My family has used the hospital within the past few years and they’ve had no complaints. Georgetown is very good as well.
I didn’t say they’e bad. Just that there’s no longer any reason why we’d use the place. We have 3 of the “top 50” in the country right here.
Oh, my the times have changed! Used to be participants on this forum were curious and skeptical about "factual" reports in the Washington Post.
An enterprising soul may try to find out the following:
1. How much money did the hospital spend on transportation of staff to work?
2. How much money did the hospital spend on snow clearance activities?
3. Why does one of our heroes give conflicting accounts to Fox 5 News and the WaPo?
4. Why were only a handful of employees terminated out of 700+ who failed to report as scheduled?
5. Why does the Post quote a union official regarding the performance evaluation of one affected employee, and how does that official have access to private information not distributed to either the union or the public?
I'd like to give you the short answer: this isn't a story. It's sensationalistic BS, and many of you are idiots for falling for it.
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