Jamie Miller: Magee nurses forming union to be voice for you and your loved ones

I was a scared 17-year-old when I first went to Magee-Womens Hospital for my prenatal care. I had a high-risk pregnancy, and as a teenage mom, I had no idea what to expect. There was never any question about which hospital to go to. Magee is where my family has delivered their babies for four generations now.

A very special nurse practitioner took the time at each appointment to hold my hand and support me throughout my difficult pregnancy. The humanity she showed me and my baby was what inspired me to become an obstetrics nurse.

Now years later, I have committed to organizing a union with my nurse co-workers at Magee because I want to provide the most compassionate care to my patients, just like that nurse first did with me.

UPMC executives have increasingly exerted pressure on all health care professionals to take on heavier patient loads with fewer staff and resources. It has become crystal clear to us that in order to advocate effectively for the care every one of our patients deserves, nurses too must have a seat at the decision-making table, alongside the insurance and health care executives.

That realization has led Magee’s more than 1,000 registered nurses and advanced practice professionals — including nurse practitioners, midwives and others — to organize our union across the hospital. Together, we’re calling for more time with our patients and standards that will support lifelong careers at Magee.

I’ve been a nurse for more than two decades. I was part of the team that opened the unit at Magee which is devoted to caring for high-risk moms and their babies after they’ve given birth. At Magee, we have some of the sickest patients with the most complex needs in our region. The mothers we treat have a range of complications, from hemorrhages and preeclampsia, to chronic diseases such as diabetes and complex infections. Many of our babies, along with their moms, are in withdrawal from opioids and other substances.

Because our patients are so sick and each of them needs one-on-one care, it is critical that we have appropriate staffing levels. Proper nurse-to-patient ratios give us the time we need to help our moms get through what can be the best, and sometimes the scariest, days of their lives. Yet since we opened the unit, staffing has been a constant struggle.

According to the national Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, the ratio of nurses to “couplets” — meaning a mom and baby — should be no more than one to three in a postpartum unit for healthy patients. Yet we almost never meet that national standard with our healthy couplets, let alone with our complicated and high-risk patients. Many times, we are not even close.

When we’re understaffed, nurses have so many responsibilities to attend to at once that it is absolutely crushing. We always do our very best, but inevitably we are put in difficult situations. It’s so hard to see patients with urgent needs and you can’t get to their side fast enough. That takes a heavy toll on your mind, your body and your moral conscience. You leave the hospital every day feeling like you’re not enough.

Other UPMC policies, such as inadequate benefits, insufficient supplies and wage caps for veteran nurses like myself, have compounded problems with understaffing and led to constant turnover. This results in a workforce that has less bedside experience.

For years, my co-workers and I have repeatedly advocated through all internal channels for more staffing and support for nurses. While we’re consistently told our concerns cannot be addressed because “it’s not in the budget,” UPMC has spent lavishly on executive pay, a luxury jet, the expansion of its insurance business, advertising campaigns and ventures in other countries.

As we have been struggling, we’ve watched nurses at union hospitals achieve groundbreaking contracts that have raised standards for staffing and retention. We want to join with these nurses across our state so that we can transform and modernize the nursing profession.

In May, we requested a union election through the National Labor Relations Board and announced that we want to work with UPMC to schedule a vote as soon as possible. In response, UPMC hired an expensive corporate law firm to try to delay our election, while directing managers to carry out an anti-union campaign inside our hospital on a daily basis.

Pennsylvania is facing a maternal health crisis as well as a nursing crisis. Hospitals are now facing drastic Medicaid funding cuts which will make this health care emergency even worse. In order to provide for our community’s growing health care needs, nurses must have a voice in our hospital’s policies and priorities.

It’s past time for UPMC to stop wasting patient care resources on delays and work with us, their frontline nurses, as partners in the success of our hospital. Magee nurses are determined to win our union and negotiate a contract with UPMC that ensures the needs of our patients come first.

Jamie Miller has been a registered nurse for more than 20 years and works at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital.