TAMC nurses threaten to strike
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Nearly 200 unionized nurses at Aroostook County’s largest hospital have voted to authorize a strike, amid contract negotiations involving staffing issues they maintain are putting patient care at risk.
Nurses at The Aroostook Medical Center, represented by the Maine State Nurses Association, voted Wednesday to approve the possibility of taking a three-day strike. Their contract with TAMC expires on July 7. It would be the first time nurses walked out on strike at the 89-bed hospital.
Kim Cooper, a surgery nurse and union bargaining team member, said nurses and TAMC management are at “a standstill” over staffing agreements in their contract, including the ratio of nurses per patient.
“We struggle to give our patients the care they deserve,” Cooper, who has worked at the Presque Isle hospital for more than 20 years, said in a media release.
“TAMC is unable to recruit and retain enough staff to fill all of the shifts throughout the medical center. This means they are paying for a lot of extra time and overtime, paying for expensive, out-of-state [travel nurses] or worse, having the nurses work so short-staffed that the ratio of patients to nurses becomes overwhelming,” she added.
Cooper said the union has sought a ratio of one nurse for every three patients, in part because of the increasing complexity and severity in the conditions hospital patients face.
TAMC, a member of the health network Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, would continue to operate uninterrupted in the event of the strike, hospital communications director Karen Gonya said Friday morning.
“We have yet to receive any formal notification and do not expect things to progress to that point,” she said in an email.
“Both TAMC and the Maine State Nurses Association have made sincere efforts to reach an agreement through the standard negotiation process,” Gonya added, while declining comment about specific proposals while talks remain ongoing.
“We are pleased that a number of tentative agreements have already been reached, and the last outstanding items will be further discussed in the negotiation session scheduled for Wednesday, July 6,” she said.
