Wahiawa
nurses strike
hits 1 monthNeither side has reported
any progress toward
agreeing on a contract
It's now one month since more than 60 registered nurses who work at Wahiawa General Hospital hit the picket line after being unable to reach a new contract.
The hospital has stuck with an offer of a 19 percent pay increase over three years. But the nurses say the hospital failed to cover key elements, such as access to retiree benefits, increased pay to reward long-time employees and safety concerns related to staffing.
The two sides have been so far apart that all discussions have been convened by a federal mediator.
The dispute has also upset Wahiawa residents. One group, a collection of Wahiawa senior citizens groups, was planning a mid-afternoon rally for today at the hospital.
The last time the nurses and hospital officials held discussions was May 14. At that time, the hospital re-submitted its proposal, which had already been rejected by the nurses.
While the nurses have been vocal about the lack of progress in contract talks, the hospital has kept mostly mum, saying only that the facility continues to operate, albeit on a modified basis.
Dr. Edmund Whang, chairman of the hospital's board, is acting hospital administrator at the facility while the hospital negotiates to hire Nashville, Tenn.-based Symphony Healthcare to run its day-to-day operations. The hospital had been managed by another Nashville company, Quorum Health Resources LLC, a subsidiary of Quorum Health Group, the nation's largest hospital management company.
Whang acknowledged there has been very little movement in talks with the nurses.
"We gave (the nurses) three options which were budget neutral. One of the three was our best and final offer," he said. "We felt we'd given them a very generous offer within our means. Wahiawa does not have a large endowment, we are a community hospital."
Whang said the hospital cannot afford to offer some of the benefits the nurses asked for, such as retiree medical benefits.
"We talked to HMSA about the financial impact if we enrolled retirees into our health plan. They came back and said there would be a significant increase in the premium for everyone if we enrolled them into our health plan," he said.
Increased health care costs, declining reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid, and a large population of elderly and indigent patients has pushed the hospital into the red every year for the past few years, Whang said, though he would not detail the losses.
"It's safe to say everyone (hospitals and doctors) in Hawaii has lost money," he said.
Wahiawa received some help last year when the state Legislature passed a bill to reimburse hospitals for uncompensated care. But the facility got half of what it asked for, Whang said.
"Last year we were promised half a million dollars but only got $250,000," he said.
This year the hospital also asked legislators for $500,000 to help pay for care provided to patients who cannot afford to pay.
Although Whang doesn't know how much the hospital may receive this year, given the state's financial problems, he is not optimistic, he said.
Sue Scheider, director of collective bargaining for the Hawaii Nurses Association, said the hospital needs to pay its nurses a competitive rate if it expects to retain staff and keep functioning as a hospital.
"If you can't pay your professional staff the market rate then you have no reason to be in business," Scheider said. "Paying your nurses the going rate is part of the cost of doing business."
Whang said the hospital has already told a federal mediator it would like to meet with the nurses again.
"We are waiting for the mediator to call the two parties together," he said.
At the same, the Wahiawa Hospital Association, which owns the hospital's assets and leases the buildings back to the hospital, has hopes of building a new acute care facility at Koa Ridge in Waipio. Whang is also a member of the association.
The association has been looking for partners for the venture both in Hawaii and on the mainland.
Ideally, it would also like to offer an expanded array of geriatric services at the Wahiawa facility, where it already has a number of long-term care beds, Whang said.