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Tag Archives: nurses
NYC nurses strike ends after tentative deal reached with hospitals
New York
CNN
—
A nurses strike at two private New York City hospital systems has come to an end after 7,000 nurses spent three days on the picket line.
The New York State Nurses Association union reached tentative deals with Mount Sinai Health System and Montefiore Health System, which operates three hospitals in the Bronx that had been struck. The nurses had been arguing that immense staffing shortages have caused widespread burnout, hindering their ability to properly care for their patients.
The union said the deal will provide enforceable “safe staffing ratios” for all inpatient units at Mount Sinai and Montefiore, “so that there will always be enough nurses at the bedside to provide safe patient care, not just on paper.” At Montefiore, the hospital agreed to financial penalties for failing to comply with agreed-upon staffing levels in all units.
Montefiore said the agreement also includes 170 new nursing positions, a 19.1% increase in pay, lifetime health coverage for eligible retirees and adding “significantly more nurses” in the ER.
The deals were announced in the early hours Thursday morning — at 3 a.m. ET for Montefiore and about 30 minutes later at Mount Sinai. The nurses were expected to be back on the job for the 7 a.m. ET shift Thursday, and Montefiore Medical Center said all surgeries and procedures and outpatient appointments for Thursday and after will proceed as scheduled.
Nurses will need to vote to approve the deal before it is finalized. But the union said the tentative deal will help put more nurses to work and allow patients to receive better care.
“Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care,” the nurses union said in a statement. “Today, we can return to work with our heads held high, knowing that our victory means safer care for our patients and more sustainable jobs for our profession.”
Mount Sinai called the agreement “fair and responsible.”
“Our proposed agreement is similar to those between NYSNA and eight other New York City hospitals,” Mount Sinai said in a statement. “It is fair and responsible, and it puts patients first.”
“From the outset, we came to the table committed to bargaining in good faith and addressing the issues that were priorities for our nursing staff,” Montefiore said in a statement. “We know this strike impacted everyone – not just our nurses – and we were committed to coming to a resolution as soon as possible to minimize disruption to patient care.”
The hospitals had stayed open during the three-day strike, using higher-cost temporary nursing services to provide care, and transferring other employees to take care of non-medical nursing duties. They had also diverted and transferred some patients to other hospitals and postponed some elective procedures.
The striking nurses have said they are working long hours in unsafe conditions without enough pay – a refrain echoed by several other nurses strikes across the country over the past year. They said the hours and the stress of having too many patients to care for is driving away nurses and creating a worsening crisis in staffing and patient care.
The union representing the nurses had reached tentative agreements offering the same 19% pay hikes at other New York hospitals, avoiding strikes by about 9,000 other nurses spread across seven hospitals in the city. But the nurses at the hospitals that went on strike said the pay raises weren’t the main problem, that the more severe staffing shortages at Mount Sinai and Montefiore needed to be addressed before a deal could be reached.
Both hospitals had criticized the union for going on strike rather than accepting offers they described as similar to those the union accepted at other hospitals in the city.
– CNN’s Chris Isidore contributed to this report
New York City nurses reach tentative agreement with Montefiore Bronx, Mount Sinai Main after 3 days of striking
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — Nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai have reached tentative agreements with the hospital and will return to work Thursday.
The New York State Nurses Association was on strike since Monday, demanding better pay and nurse to patient ratio.
“This is a historic victory for New York City nurses and for nurses across the country. NYSNA nurses have done the impossible, saving lives night and day, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we’ve again shown that nothing is impossible for nurse heroes. Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said.
Mount Sinai sent out a short statement saying in part, “Our proposed agreement is similar to those between NYSNA and eight other New York City hospitals. It is fair and responsible, and it puts patients first.”
Nurses say that with this agreement, there will always be enough nurses at the bedside to provide safe patient care, not just on paper. New staffing ratios take effect immediately.
According to the nurses, there are more than 500 open positions are Mount Sinai alone.
Meanwhile at Montefiore, their agreement includes a 19 percent raise and 170 nursing positions, an increase in what’s called float pool nurses. This will add more registered nurses and nurse practitioners to the emergency departments.
Nurses also won nursing student partnerships to recruit local Bronx nurses to stay as union nurses at Montefiore for the long-run.
“This is a historic victory for New York City nurses and for nurses across the country. NYSNA nurses have done the impossible, saving lives night and day, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we’ve again shown that nothing is impossible for nurse heroes. Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said.
Both facilities have agreed to immediate return-to-work agreements so nurses will be back at the bedside with patients today.
Nurses at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, who had been threatening to strike starting January 17, also reached a tentative deal and withdrew their 10-day strike notice.
Had a tentative agreement not been reached today, Mount Sinai had traveling nurses in the city who would have been ready to start.
As many as 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and about 3,600 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan walked off the job Monday after last-minute talks to prevent the strike broke down.
“We love our job. We want to take care of our patients. But we just want to do it safely and in a humane way, where we feel appreciated,” one nurse said.
Earlier this week, the union announced that Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Richmond University Medical Center, and BronxCare all approved their contracts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Nurses go on strike at 2 big New York City hospitals
NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of nurses went on strike Monday at two of New York City’s major hospitals after contract negotiations stalled over staffing and salaries nearly three years into the coronavirus pandemic.
The privately owned, nonprofit hospitals were postponing nonemergency surgeries, diverting ambulances to other medical centers, pulling in temporary staffers, and assigning administrators with nursing backgrounds to work in wards in order to cope with the walkout.
As many as 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and about 3,600 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan were off the job. Talks were resuming Monday afternoon at Montefiore, but there was no immediate word on when bargaining might resume at Mount Sinai.
Hundreds of nurses picketed, some singing the chorus from Twisted Sister’s 1984 hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” outside Mount Sinai. It was one of many New York hospitals deluged with COVID-19 patients as the virus made the city an epicenter of deaths in spring 2020.
“We were heroes only two years ago,” said Warren Urquhart, a nurse in transplant and oncology units. “We was on the front lines of the city when everything came to a stop. And now we need to come to a stop so they can understand how much we mean to this hospital and to the patients.”
The nurses union, the New York State Nurses Association, said members had to strike because chronic understaffing leaves them caring for too many patients.
Jed Basubas said he generally attends to eight to 10 patients at a time, twice the ideal number in the units where he works. Nurse practitioner Juliet Escalon said she sometimes skips bathroom breaks to attend to patients. So does Ashleigh Woodside, who said her 12-hour operating-room shifts often stretch to 14 hours because short staffing forces her and others to work overtime.
“We love our job. We want to take care of our patients. But we just want to do it safely and in a humane way, where we feel appreciated,” Woodside said.
The hospitals said they had offered the same raises — totaling 19% over three years — that the union had accepted at several other facilities where contract talks reached tentative agreements in recent days.
Montefiore said it had agreed to add 170 more nurses. Mount Sinai’s administration said the union’s focus on nurse-to-patient ratios “ignores the progress we have made to attract and hire more new nurses, despite a global shortage of healthcare workers that is impacting hospitals across the country.”
The hospitals said Monday that they had prepared for the strike and were working to minimize the disruption. Mount Sinai called the union’s behavior “reckless,” while Montefiore said the strike was sparking “fear and uncertainty across our community.”
“In my opinion, this action was totally unnecessary,” Montefiore President Dr. Philip Ozuah told staffers in a memo Monday afternoon. Ozuah maintained that the two sides had been close to agreement on “a very generous offer.”
Some patients, meanwhile, were left in limbo.
Darcy Gervasio took medical leave from her job at a suburban college library, made child care and transportation arrangements, got tests and otherwise prepared for a gastrointestinal surgery that was scheduled Monday but now is postponed indefinitely, she said. While the procedure is considered elective, Gervasio said it’s essential to controlling her Crohn’s disease.
“As a patient, of course, I am annoyed and inconvenienced,” she wrote in an email. But Gervasio, a union member herself, said she blames the hospital management, not the nurses.
“I am very disappointed in the administration for letting the nursing staffing crisis get out of hand in the first place — especially in the wake of the tremendous strain on nurses during the COVID pandemic,” Gervasio wrote. She questioned why Mount Sinai couldn’t strike a deal with the union when several other local hospitals did in the last two weeks.
Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the union and the hospitals late Sunday to take their dispute to binding arbitration. Montefiore’s administration had said it was willing to let an arbitrator settle the contract; the union did not immediately accept the proposal. In a statement, it said Hochul, a Democrat, “should listen to the frontline COVID nurse heroes and respect our federally-protected labor and collective bargaining rights.”
A lineup of other city and state Democratic politicians, including Attorney General Letitia James, joined a midday union rally Monday.
Both hospitals had prepared for the walkout by transferring patients, including intensive-care newborns at Mount Sinai. State Health Department representatives were at the two medical centers Monday to monitor staffing levels, the agency said.
Montefiore and Mount Sinai are the last of a group of hospitals with nursing contracts that expired simultaneously. The union initially warned that it would strike at all of them at the same time, but the other hospitals reached agreements as the deadline approached. All include raises of 7%, 6%, and 5% over the next three years.
___
Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.
7,000 nurses on strike at 2 New York City hospitals
Mount Sinai spokeswoman Lucia Lee said the union walked out of negotiations shortly after 1 a.m. Representatives from both hospitals said the union rejected the same nearly 20-percent wage increase proposal that nurses at peer institutions accepted in previous bargaining talks.
New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) in a statement urged all parties to “remain at the bargaining table for however long it takes to reach a voluntary agreement.”
Nursing unions across the country have pushed for staffing improvements since the start of the pandemic, citing burnout they contend has depleted patient care capabilities and placed health care professionals in harm’s way.
More than 400 nurses walked off the job at a Chicago hospital on Jan. 3, for a three-day strike after layoffs exacerbated staffing shortages. Nurses in Oakland and Berkeley, Calif., held a five-day strike beginning Christmas Eve. Another 400 health care workers — including nursing assistants, surgical technicians, pharmacists, dietitians and lab assistants — launched a five-day strike in Marina del Rey, Calif., on Dec. 12, over similar concerns.
New York nurses were able to reach agreements with seven other hospitals around a common bargaining framework. Nurses will get close to 20-percent salary increases over three years, and the hospitals agreed to improved staffing standards.
“Since [New York City] nurses started negotiating our contracts four months ago, we have said our number one issue is the crisis of chronic understaffing that harms patient care,” New York State Nurses Association President Nancy Hagans told reporters Friday. “Safe staffing is about having enough nurses to deliver safe, quality care to every patient. It is the issue that our employers have ignored, made excuses about, and fought against us on.”
Montefiore in statement said nurses “decided to walk away from the bedsides of the patients” in the strike, and said the work stoppage “will spark fear and uncertainty across our community.”
“Our first priority is the safety of our patients. We’re prepared to minimize disruption, and we encourage Mount Sinai nurses to continue providing the world-class care they’re known for, in spite of NYSNA’s strike,” Lee, the Mount Sinai spokeswoman, said in a statement.
The union in a post on Twitter said patients going to either hospital system “is NOT crossing our strike line.” It invited patients to join demonstrations after receiving care.
Nurses from New York City hospitals set to strike as contract negotiations stall
New York
CNN
—
A walk-out by more than 7,000 nurses at two major New York City hospitals is set to begin at 6 a.m. ET Monday after talks aimed at averting a strike broke down overnight.
Tentative deals had been reached in recent days covering nurses at several hospitals, including two new agreements late Sunday evening. But talks with Mount Sinai hospital in Manhattan and Montefiore in the Bronx failed overnight.
“After bargaining late into the night at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital yesterday, no tentative agreements were reached. Today, more than 7,000 nurses at two hospitals are on strike for fair contracts that improve patient care,” the New York State Nurses Association said in a Monday statement.
Both hospitals said earlier on Monday morning that efforts to reach an agreement were unsuccessful.
“NYSNA leadership walked out of negotiations shortly after 1 a.m. ET, refusing to accept the exact same 19.1% increased wage offer agreed to by eight other hospitals, including two other Mount Sinai Health System campuses, and disregarding the Governor’s solution to avoid a strike,” Lucia Lee, a spokesperson for Mount Sinai, said in a statement to CNN.
Montefiore said it was “a sad day for New York City.”
“Despite Montefiore’s offer of a 19.1% compounded wage increase — the same offer agreed to at the wealthiest of our peer institutions — and a commitment to create over 170 new nursing positions … NYSNA’s leadership has decided to walk away from the bedsides of their patients,” the medical center said in a statement.
The tentative deals reached at other hospitals provide nurses with a combined 19.1% in pay increases over the three-year life of the agreements and includes promises by management to increase staffing to address the union’s major complaint of nurses being overworked and facing burnout.
Mount Sinai and Montefiore said they had agreed to meet the wage demands of the union, but the union claimed that staffing levels remain the sticking point in reaching deals at the two remaining hospitals.
“We need management to come to the table and provide better staffing,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a press call Sunday afternoon.
According to Hagans, Montefiore has 760 nursing vacancies, adding that “too often one nurse in the emergency department is responsible for 20 patients instead of the standard of three patients.”
On Sunday evening, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul had urged the management and the union to agree to binding arbitration as a way of avoiding the strike. Although the management of the two hospitals embraced the idea, the union did not.
“We will not give up on our fight to ensure that our patients have enough nurses at the bedside,” the union said in response to Hochul’s arbitration suggestion.
New York Mayor Eric Adams had encouraged all parties on Sunday night to “remain at the bargaining table for however long it takes to reach a voluntary agreement.”
The hospitals have been preparing for a strike since the nurses union gave notice of its plans 10 days ago. The affected hospitals plan on paying temporary “traveling” nurses to fill in where possible and some had already begun transferring patients.
Montefiore released a notice to staff, obtained by CNN, telling nurses how to quit the union and stay on the job if they wanted to continue to care for their patients.
Mount Sinai, which operates two hospitals that reached deals Sunday evening in addition to the one still facing a strike, started transferring infants in the neonatal intensive care unit at the end of this past week. Hospitals facing the possibility of strikes had already taken steps to postpone some elective procedures.
The union says the hospitals will be spending more on hiring temporary nurses at a significantly greater cost. It argues the hospitals should agree to their demands to hire more staff and grant the raises the union is seeking.
“As nurses, our top concern is patient safety,” Hagans said in a statement Friday. “Yet nurses … have been forced to work without enough staff, stretched to our breaking point, sometimes with one nurse in the Emergency Department responsible for 20 patients. That’s not safe for nurses or our patients.”
The hospitals say they are doing what they can to hire more nursing staff.
“Mount Sinai is dismayed by NYSNA’s reckless actions,” Mount Sinai said in a statement Friday. “The union is jeopardizing patients’ care, and it’s forcing valued Mount Sinai nurses to choose between their dedication to patient care and their own livelihoods.”
Nurses at the first hospital to reach a tentative deal, New York-Presbyterian, voted on Saturday. It was a close call with 57% of nurses voting yes and 43% against. The tentative deals reached over the last few days still need to be ratified by rank-and-file union members before they can take effect.
Strikes have become more common nationwide, as tight labor markets and unhappiness with work conditions have prompted unionized employees to flex their muscles more often at the bargaining table.
There were 385 strikes in 2022, up 42% from 270 in 2021, according to the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. The US Labor Department, which tracks only major strikes by 1,000 or more workers, recorded 20 strikes in the first 11 months of 2022, up 33% from the same period in 2021.
Numerous nursing strikes were among the recorded work stoppages, with many unions citing instances of burnout and health problems among members.
Four out of the 20 strikes reported by the Labor Department last year involved nurses unions. The largest was a three-day strike by the 15,000 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association involving 13 hospitals in the state.
— CNN’s Tina Burnside, Artemis Moshtaghian and Ramishah Maruf contributed to this report.
U.K. nurses strike over pay, testing a health care system in crisis
Most worrisome for the government — and the public — is that nurses have just gone on strike, too. Teachers are threatening work stoppages early in the new year.
Workers in wide swaths of the public sector are in open revolt against 12 years of “austerity budgets” by the Conservative Party and the soaring costs of living in 2022. Energy prices are so high here that the government stepped in to cap and subsidize home heating bills so that people wouldn’t freeze in their flats.
This follows the immolation of the previous Tory government, that of Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in modern British history. She had called for sweeping tax cuts but offered no way to pay for them, sending markets reeling and Truss to early retirement.
The British government is now preparing to mobilize 1,200 army troops to drive ambulances over the holidays. Civil servants from other agencies will be brought in to check passports at border crossings, if necessary.
During the worst years of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of ordinary Britons, alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson (also gone), stood on their doorsteps during harsh lockdowns to bang pots and pans and clap their hands for National Health Service workers, hailing them as front-line heroes.
Now the nurses are saying they need more than applause. They are burned out, overworked and underpaid, they say, and want a real raise to keep up with inflation, which has topped 10 percent.
“They’re taking advantage of us,” said Rachel Ambrose, 40, a mental health nurse who works with children and teenagers in Oxford. “We don’t seek an extravagant lifestyle. We’re nurses. We just want to pay our bills. We want heat.”
Ambrose said that the nurses are “fired up, we’re angry, we’re determined,” and that these strikes “will continue because they are ignoring us.”
She pointed to staffing shortages at the NHS that undermine patient care and have nurses at a breaking point. Sick days have soared since the pandemic — and so have nurses leaving the profession or moving abroad.
Britain’s public health system is short 50,000 nurses. Half of all new hires today come from overseas because the U.K. either can’t train enough at home or pays too little to attract new workers. Brexit also has stemmed the “free movement” flow of nurses from Eastern Europe to Britain.
The government says the average nurse’s salary is now 35,600 pounds ($43,300). New nurses are paid less; experienced nurses with specialized skills are paid more; overtime also boosts salaries.
Nurses earn higher wages in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany and Spain. British nurses, though, are paid more than their counterparts in France and Italy.
After one of the worst weeks of strikes in recent British history, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s new government is still refusing to sit at the table with the unions, calling the salary increases “unaffordable” and warning that the government must hold the line on wages to keep inflation in check.
The government supports a modest pay raise for ambulance crews and nurses — as recommended by independent pay-review bodies — of about 4.75 percent. The nurses union is demanding a 19 percent increase.
Sunak’s spokesperson on Monday told reporters that “it would be irresponsible to push ahead with double-digit pay awards.”
But Sunak and his government ministers are learning that it is one thing to fight the railway workers and their “union bosses,” as the government brands them, and quite another to fight the nurses. The railway strikes create frustrating snarls for urban commuters and holiday travelers — which are highlighted by the anti-union tabloids. The nurses, on the other hand, are revered. A YouGov poll this month found that 64 percent of Britons backed the nurses’ strike.
On Monday, Sunak called an emergency cabinet meeting to shape plans to keep the country’s vital national services going, with the army on standby.
Some 10,000 ambulance workers in England and Wales are set to go on strike Wednesday. Members of the Royal College of Nurses union walked out Thursday and are headed to the picket lines again Tuesday.
Nurses who work in emergency rooms have stayed on the job, but hospitals are struggling to maintain staffing for basic care. Many routine procedures, exams, non-emergency surgeries and other treatments have been delayed.
Some victims of heart attack or stroke are waiting almost an hour on average for ambulances — compared with the 18-minute target.
At neighborhood doctor’s offices, where most patients see their general practitioner and nurses, the staffs describe a system in crisis because of chronic underfunding and worker shortages.
Anthony Johnson, 29, a cardiac nurse in Leeds, is among those supporting the decision by the Royal College of Nursing to walk out for the first time in its 106-year history.
“We have not had pay rises that meet inflation. That’s why you see nurses going to food banks and the number of vacancies have drastically increased,” he said. “We have horrendous nurse-to-patient ratios. Our clinical guidelines are one nurse to eight patients, but we never generally meet that. The reality is, it’s one nurse to 13 patients, so it’s constantly unsafe and puts patients at risk.”
He likes working in Britain and will stay. But many are looking abroad, he warned.
“We’re training nurses for export, usually to Canada, Australia and New Zealand … where nurses can make an extra 10,000 pounds [$12,200],” Johnson said. “Rather than investing in our staff, the U.K. government is stealing nurses from other parts of the world. They are cutting pay and letting that happen.”
Julia Patterson, founder of Every Doctor, a campaign group representing 1,200 U.K. physicians, said her doctors are “really supportive and will pull together to keep patients safe in the absence of nurses. They will have to work incredibly hard, but they support their colleagues doing this.”
She noted that doctors, too, are being balloted to see if they might strike in the new year.
“People are dying because of a failure in public health,” Patterson said.
A hospital apologized for ‘disrespectful and unprofessional comments’ made by nurses in a TikTok video that discussed their patient ‘icks’
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A group of Labor and Delivery nurses sparked online ire with their TikTok video on patient “icks.”
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Hospital operator Emory Healthcare condemned the nurses’ “disrespectful and unprofessional” comments.
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It said it has “taken appropriate actions with the former employees responsible for the video.”
A group of labor and delivery nurses in Atlanta appear to have lost their jobs after posting a TikTok video this week that mocked patients and discussed their “icks”.
The nurses are now “former employees” of Emory University Hospital Midtown, according to a statement posted to Facebook by Emory Healthcare on Thursday.
After the nurse’s TikTok received widespread attention, the original poster has since deleted everything on their account, including the original video.
However, the video has been repeatedly uploaded and shared on various platforms including TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter. One upload of the video has been viewed more than 2 million times on TikTok alone.
In the video, the nurses take turns sharing their complaints — or “icks” — about patient behavior.
“My ick is when you ask me how much the baby weighs and it’s still in your hands,” said one nurse.
“My ick is when you come in for your induction, talking about ‘can I take a shower, can I eat?'” another added.
They also mocked mothers’ choices of pain medication, as well as their requests for blankets.
The video sparked anger from social media users. One TikTok user commented: “My ick is when people work in healthcare and don’t have compassion for people.”
Another said: “As a first-time mom this makes me so sad and more nervous. I pray my nurses aren’t like this.”
Emory Healthcare said in its statement: “We are aware of a TikTok video that included disrespectful and unprofessional comments about maternity patients at Emory University Hospital Midtown. We have investigated the situation and taken appropriate actions with the former employees responsible for the video.”
Emory University Hospital Midtown did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Emergency rooms dealing with a surge in respiratory illnesses, flu, and COVID
NEW YORK (WABC) — Emergency rooms are filling up at a quick pace and health officials have been seeing adults with both flu and COVID along with young pediatric patients with RSV.
The annual Winter flu season usually doesn’t start until December or January, but this year’s began early and has been complicated by the spread of other viruses and COVID is still lingering.
According to the CDC, 44 states have reported high or very high flu activity last week.
Experts say there was likely more spread of respiratory viruses during Thanksgiving gatherings and at crowded airports.
The CDC estimates there have been at least 78,000 hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths from flu so far this season.
The deaths include at least 14 children.
They say the problem with the flu and RSV is that the viruses add more constraint to the emergency rooms that are experiencing other emergencies like heart attacks or strokes, hence why we have to be mindful about controlling transmission.
Senator Schumer is calling on the Department of Human Services on Sunday to be ready to provide emergency rooms with the doctors and nurses they need.
“Our emergency departments have been almost overwhelmed where we’re holding our own and we’re above water, but we’re seeing where we would typically see 200 children in a 24-hour period, day after day. We’ve basically been seeing 300 children today,” Schumer said.
With the upcoming holiday season, health officials are asking you to be cautious as you go indoors and have gatherings.
If you get your flu shot now, you can have that protection before the Christmas-New Year holiday period.
ALSO READ | Police bust Manhattan street vendors, seize $10M+ worth of luxury knock offs
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‘Preparing for disfigurement’: Wait for B.C. cancer surgery leaves time for nurse’s tumour to grow
A B.C. woman who has been waiting months for a cancer treatment plan finally has a surgery date on Dec. 1.
However, due to the delay in getting that date and a treatment plan in place, Fayra Krueger now faces the loss of her right ear and permanent disfigurement.
A registered nurse, Krueger had a tumour about the size of a grape removed from her ear in June.
“I was told we had clear margins so then about five weeks after that… I noticed my lymph nodes on the same side were quite swollen so I went to my family doctor,” she told Global News. “That was the first week of August and began the process of what had become metastasized skin cancer.”
Her surgery date is still a week and a half away.
“From the time I was diagnosed with the metastatic stage 3 cancer to the time I’m actually getting surgery is four months,” Krueger said.
“The cancer has grown and advanced so much during those four months that what I was initially told would be an overnight stay in hospital and a fairly straightforward surgery has now turned into a three-to-five-day stay,” she added. ”
“I have the likelihood of losing my entire ear, maybe part of my jawbone. Ten days ago I had four of my teeth extracted because of the radiation. I may also lose function in my facial nerves so that would be my smell, sense of taste and movement. I may lose my smile, my ability to smile.
“And the pain is quite significant now, it’s ongoing pain.”
Read more:
B.C. registered nurse shares health care response to cancer diagnosis
Read More
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B.C. registered nurse shares health care response to cancer diagnosis
Krueger said she is still trying to come to terms with what might happen
“Especially because it could have been prevented,” she said. “That’s the key and that’s the message I want people to hear, it wasn’t necessary, you know. Had I been offered the treatment in a reasonable timeframe.”
Krueger said in her understanding, referrals to BC Cancer usually take about two weeks and she waited a few months.
“I work in the system so I know there’s significant systemic delays across the board in health care right now,” she said. “But to be honest with you, stage 3 cancer, I thought I would be a higher priority.
“I thought even with the lack of resources, I would still receive some sort of fast-track because now I’m going to be facing significant disfigurement, not to mention the complications of having such extensive surgery.”
In a statement to Global News Monday, Dr. Kim Nguyen Chi, chief medical officer for BC Cancer said he cannot discuss the specific details of any case due to patient privacy.
“Regional health authorities perform the majority of cancer-related surgeries with the exception of BC Cancer – Vancouver, which performs a limited number of surgeries for breast cancer, minor surgical oncology and gynecology surgeries,” he said in a statement. “The surgical suite also performs brachytherapy, and endoscopies and bronchoscopies.
“Patients referred to BC Cancer for PET/CT are triaged based on a number of factors. These factors can include: type of cancer, location of disease, clinical stage, impact on clinical management.”
He said waits for PET/CT scan results can vary but the majority of people wait 28 days or less, with urgent cases waiting less than 14 days on average.
Read more:
B.C. makes seismic shift in funding model to retain, attract more family doctors
Health Minister Adrian Dix said Monday the way to address the delay in cancer surgeries will be by hiring more oncologists, adding more surgeries and more team-based staff.
“So in the last two budgets there’s been significant new investments in cancer, which we’re going to build upon with a 10-year cancer plan,” he said.
Dix said there have also been more staff hired.
“In addition. on the issue of scans, we’ve added new PET/CT scanning capacity, which was really only in Metro Vancouver before, in Kamloops and Victoria,” he said.
But for Krueger, she now has to wrap her head around what’s going to happen on Dec. 1.
“We’re failing. We’re failing the public,” she said.
“It’s hard, I have a daughter who is fairly young so I’m trying to prepare her.
“I’m just preparing myself for that disfigurement and hoping when I come out that I can literally still be smiling.”
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