March 14, 2022 – Over 200 nurses represented by ACMH Nurses United, an affiliate of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, are staging a strike at Armstrong County Memorial Hospital in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, the first strike at the hospital in more than twenty years. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, the nurses have cited concerns over staffing and called on hospital management to invest in effective nursing recruitment.
“As nurses, our first priority is always excellent patient care, and to provide it, we cannot be assigned too many patients at once,” Sandra Harrison, RN, an operating room nurse who has been at the hospital 39 years, said in a union news release. “Before the pandemic, inadequate staffing was already a problem, but during the pandemic, the situation became critical. Nurses’ suggestions and concerns have been ignored by management. Our patients, our community, and the nurses deserve better.”
Contract negotiations for nurses at Armstrong County Memorial have been ongoing since July 2021. In January, the nurses voted to authorize a strike, allowed the bargaining committee to issue a 10-day strike notice. The Becker’s report says that the union issued a strike notice on March 2, and will strike through March 17.
The hospital defended its staffing policies in a statement to Becker’s. The statement said, “”The hospital and … union have had patient-nurse staffing guidelines in the labor agreement for a number of years. ACMH frequently operates with staffing in excess of these guidelines. Additionally, the Union did not propose any changes to the staffing guidelines during the negotiations. Nationally, and similar to most Pennsylvania hospitals, ACMH has nursing vacancies, and to ensure that our patients are given quality care we have done what many hospitals are being forced to do, and that is to utilize nursing staffing agencies.”