Groups of nurses gathered in front of the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center downtown on Thursday, fervently raising signs and voices to speak out in favor of securing better working conditions for those caring for veterans.
“We believe that the nurses can advocate better for their patients when their jobs are secure and they have better bargaining rights,” said Irma Westmoreland, registered nurse and vice president of National Nurses United. “They can stand for this patient. These nurses are doing this every single day.”
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National Nurses United, or NNU, the wide-reaching union and professional association of registered nurses headquartered in Oakland, Calif., issued a press release on Tuesday announcing coordinated joint protests in Augusta, Atlanta and Tuscaloosa, Ala., all on Sept. 1.
Registered VA nurses came out in 20-minute shifts, using their lunch breaks, to assemble in front of the hospital, near the corner of Fifteenth and Harper Streets, with board signs, clappers, a megaphone and a mic.
The Augusta branch of NNU is petition on behalf of VA Southeast Network, or VISN 7, under which the Charlie Norwood Medical Center operates. The cause of the union’s rally was multivalent, ranging from patient safety to insufficient break periods to hazardous workloads.
Intensive care unit nurse Michelle Rodriguez recalls RA’s being assigned six patients at a time.
“That’s the max they want us to do when they get to six then we’ll go on diversion,” said Rodriguez. “That’s really unsafe. It was unsafe way before before six, and just recently six COVID patients.”
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COVID patients, Rodriguez notes, require much more care than other patients because they need to be constantly moving, standing up or walking to stave off the threat of pneumonia. like that. They need to be rotating standing up walking.
“We can’t do that for them,” she said. “We can’t push them to do that because we don’t have time. We’re literally just saying, ‘here’s your meds, I’ve got to go to the next patient.’”
William Carpenter, also a registered ICU nurse at the veterans hospital, criticizes he and his colleagues being frequently floated to care for patients whose ailments are outside their specialties.
“They forced us to go work on other floors,” Carpenter said. “To take on double my amount of patients that I normally have. They don’t even give you advance notice that if this is going to change your whole 12-hour day. Don’t you think you want somebody to be prepared for that? No, you find out when you get to work. You’ve got five seconds to process and get to where you’re being forced to work. That is very unprofessional and that unethical treatment of skilled labor.”
The union’s overarching aim with the coordinated protest, Westmoreland says, is to encourage regional directors urge Denis McDonough, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, to sign a master contract with the union, agreed upon in 2018 with the help of the Federal Service Impasse Panel, a group within the Federal Labor Relations Authority that assists negotiations between agencies and unions.
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The demonstration culminated with 3000 letters being sent to McDonough from across the VA from nurses asking him to sign the contract.
NNU also seeks McDonough’s support of the VA Employee Fairness Act, a bill introduced in 2021 by California state representative Mark Takano, that would ensure bargaining rights for clinical professionals and registered nurses working under Veterans Affairs.
Thursday’s rally also kicked off the association’s Community Support Campaign, in which the group will attend the Augusta Market each Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“We are going to be asking the public to also scan in a letter and send it to the secretary and Dr. Walker asking them specifically to help this area,” Westmoreland said, referring to Dr. David Walker, network director of VISN 7. “Help VISN 7 to get more nurses, to help VISN 7 retain nurses.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
