SLU Hospital staff nurses will go on strike from December 27th to December 29th. The nurses’ top requests to the hospital include hiring more full-time union nurses, relying less on travel nurses, and focusing on nurse retention and recruitment. SLU has reported challenges in reaching a new staff contract with the nurses’ union, the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), but pledged to prevent disruptions in patient care or services during the strike.

During the peak of the pandemic, staffing was so low that hospitals had to rely on travel nurses to support their staff. Low staffing can decrease the quality of care that patients receive and increases the likelihood of patient deaths, infections, and falls. Low staffing also increases the length of hospitals stays. About 90% of U.S. Nurses admit that the staff nurse shortage is worse this year compared to 2018 (before the pandemic).

Staffing has been an issue. Some reports show that more nurses have started travel nursing because it provides them with higher pay than staff nursing and with flexible schedules. Also, in Missouri alone, about 38,000 registered nurses aren’t currently working as nurses. AMN, a healthcare staffing agency, found that nurses were more satisfied with their career when their employers created effective mental health programs and when nurses had adequate time to spend with patients.

While travel nurses have helped with staff shortages, staff nurses are reporting having to spend time to train nurses who won’t be there for long, which takes away time from providing quality care to their patients.

Staff nurses at SLU are witnessing patients not receiving the best care that they should, the hospital not being able to keep enough staff despite hiring over 1,600 new nurses since 2020, and patient and patient families showing higher signs of irritability and violence as a result.

As a result of these issues, a group of SLU nurses protested on July 19th and SLU nurses held a 24-hour strike on September 25th.

SLU nurses plan to strike again from 7am on December 27th to 6:59am on December 29th due to their concerns not being previously resolved.

The contract that SLU Hospital had with the nursing union ended in June. The hospital has reported several attempts to amend their offer with the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) and stated that the NNOC has frequently stalled progress, negatively impacting both the patients and the staff.

Right now, due to concerns about travel nursing, it is unknown when the new contract will be ready and agreed upon.