PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Nurses at The Aroostook Medical Center held a 48-hour strike over the weekend, the first-ever work stoppage by unionized nurses at Aroostook County’s largest hospital.
After a 10-day notice, TAMC nurses represented by the Maine State Nurses Association began the strike at 6:45 a.m. Friday. They’ve been working without a contract since July 7 and say they want the Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems-member hospital to invest more in recruiting and retaining nurses, with both better wages and more hires across the hospital’s units.
“There are not enough nurses at the bedside to give the care that needs to be given,” said Kim Cooper, a surgery nurse and union bargaining team member, as she and members of the union representing about 160 nurses held a rally at the TAMC entrance.
“We don’t have time to give patients what they deserve,” said Cooper, who’s worked at the facility for 20 years. “The burnout is unbelievable. We constantly have open shifts. People go without lunch breaks, they work overtime, they come in early. We can’t continue at this pace, and we’re asking for recruitment and retention.”
TAMC officials hired 33 temporary nurses and drew on registered nurses in management positions to work so the hospital could remain open without interruption during the two-day strike.
In a press conference the day before the strike, hospital officials made the case for the latest wage offer to the union, a formula that would translate into approximately a 5 percent annual raise for most TAMC nurses over the three-year contract.
Dr. Jay Reynolds, TAMC’s chief medical officer, said the hospital looked forward to the nurses returning to work on Sunday, July 24, and coming to a resolution on the contract. He also acknowledged the workforce challenges that many hospitals are facing.
“There is a nationwide nursing shortage, and there’s certainly a nursing shortage in Aroostook County,” Reynolds said. “Just as we are having a boom in our senior-age population, our largest consumers of health care, the number of working-age Aroostook County residents continues to go down.”
Cooper said she thinks there is “actually a shortage of working nurses. Because working at the bedside is such a challenge, people have left the profession.”
Reynolds said the hospital meets safe nurse staffing levels and earns consistently high quality ratings. He said they base staffing on changing needs across the units, and that they are “well in excess of what are considered national standards.”
The hospital also uses travel nurses, who on average comprise about 7 percent of the nurses at the hospital, Reynolds said.
Roland Joy, TAMC’s chief nursing officer, said that the nurses and managers have collaborated over the last few years on staffing and technology issues, and tentatively agreed to a number of items in the course of their contract talks. He added that the hospital annually recruits graduates of the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s nursing program, and that the hospital has an 85 percent retention rate for nurses.
The nurses’ union held rallies each day of the strike until 7 p.m. and on Saturday they were joined by Emily Cain, the Democratic candidate for Maine’s second congressional district, who voiced support of their cause.
“Our nurses do difficult, important, and often thankless jobs with the best possible motives,” Cain said in a media release. “They became nurses to help people, pure and simple, and we should be giving them the support they need to do that job.”
