LIHUE >> Dozens of nurses at Wilcox Medical Center picketed in front of the hospital Wednesday to draw attention to their call for safe staffing levels for quality patient care.
The informational picket came after months of contract negotiations between the Hawai‘i Nurses’ Association and Wilcox Medical Center management.
The two sides have been negotiating since May. The union, which said it gave a legally required 10-day advance notification of its intent to picket, represents nearly 160 nurses at Wilcox.
“We are picketing for safe staffing and safe patient care not only for our jobs, but most importantly for our community,” Sonya Balian-Grande, a nurse at the Lihue hospital, said in an HNA news release. “We are simply asking for guaranteed nurse-to-patient ratios and safer staffing numbers in our new contract. Our patients trust us to keep them healthy, safe, and alive and we want to do everything we can to maintain that level of trust and care.”
The informational picket drew some in-person support from UNITE HERE Local 5 hotel workers on the island.
Wilcox Chief Nurse Executive Darla Sarby said in a statement: “Our nurses are an integral part of our Wilcox team and all we do for our community. We remain deeply invested in our nurses and their careers as we continue to listen to their priorities and work with them to reach an agreement.
“We are offering innovative ways to address staffing and across-the-board wage increases. We want our nurses to benefit from a new contract and we hope to make further progress at this Friday’s negotiation session.”
The informational picket came on the heels of a settlement this month between unionized nurses and Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women & Children. That settlement was reached after an 18-day lockout, two strikes and over a year of negotiations between the two parties with nurse-to-patient ratios being a key issue.
Both Wilcox and Kapi‘olani are owned by Hawaii Pacific Health.
“What is good for one hospital is good for all,” HNA President Rosalee Agas-Yuu said in a statement. “The nurses at Wilcox have been asking for safe staffing levels. We don’t need to go down the same ugly path that Kapi‘olani chose. The Kauai community cannot afford any disruption of care. Hawaii Pacific Health now has a contract whose terms and conditions can be used as a model for its other hospitals to expedite a settlement.”
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Garden Island staff writer Dennis Fujimoto contributed to this report.
