NEW YEARS EVE – The Metrowest Medical Center is diverting ambulances and patients again. The Mayor called and was told that they were short staff because a couple nurses called out sick and that everything would be okay soon. Unfortunately this may not have been a truthful message relayed to our city’s commander.
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This is a complaint about METROWEST Medical Center Labor and Delivery Unit. The unit has been operating with 1 or 2 registered nurses on each shift. This is extremely dangerous to all involved! Patients are not safe, their unborn babies are not safe, nurses who work are not safe. We are burnt out, resentful and very disappointed. Management keeps on promising more staff.
We have been promised travelers, rapid travelers, more regular staff. To this day, we have not seen any of these people. Management does not follow AWHONN staffing standards or any guidelines when it comes to patient to nurse ratios. We deal with high risk medications, high risk pregnancies but we simply cannot care for the patients like this. One nurse cannot be in 4 places at the
same time. How can a Labor and Delivery unit be kept open with ONLY 1 RN? It is extremely unsafe.
The nurses work very long hours. We do not get breaks to eat, to drink something or to simply catch our breath. Lunch breaks are a law in Massachusetts, we do not get them, yet, we get 30 minutes deducted from our pay.
Nurses are mandated to stay at work at times when there are patients on the unit and no nurses are coming in to work. After 12 long hours we are mandated to stay. From our understanding, mandating nurses is acceptable under certain circumstances.
These mandates have to be reported to DPH. Have you gotten the reports from management? If yes, have they explained that the mandates happen due to severely understaffed shifts and not due to call outs?
The week of Christmas the unit had ZERO nurses on. The unit had to go on “diversion’. Word got to the local media. When management was questioned, they replied that the diversion happened because many of the nurses called out sick, but
otherwise all is great. And while yes, the nurses called out, it was not due to sickness. It was due to the fact that no nurse wants to be THE ONLY ONE nurse scheduled to work! We do not want to take on that responsibility!
With only 1 nurse on the Labor and Delivery unit, it is just a matter of time before a tragedy occurs. Someone (or more people, including newly born or unborn infants) will get hurt, or worse, lose their lives.
We DO write reports on the above. We did ring the alarm bells to management, HR, supervisors. No response.
Under these circumstances we cannot care for our patients.
Framingham needs this unit. The population is very diverse, underserved. They do not have the means to drive to Boston, Worcester or other hospitals.
We are in desperate need for help!
READ ABOUT THE SPRING CODE BLACK WHERE AMBULANCES WERE TURNED AWAY FOR SEVERAL DAYS WHERE THE HOSPITAL FIRST BLAMED A CYBERATTACK OF SORTS FOR THEIR INABILITY TO SERVE THE PEOPLE. WE GOT THE FULL TRUTH VIA A FOIA TO THE STATE.
This is what happens when hospitals get sold to a for profit corporation. They now have to generate enough extra money to pay for ungodly high paid executives’, but also bring in a profit.