Nurses at U. Illinois Hospital & Clinics Near DNC Go on Strike
The hospital asked the court for a temp restraining order because of the lack of replacement nurses since “many Staffing Agency nurses are not willing to travel to Chicago, Illinois during the DNC for safety reasons.”
Nurses at the University of Illinois Hospital & Clinics near the DNC in Chicago walked out on their jobs today.
That always sucks, but the hospital is one of the closest to the United Center, which is hosting the DNC:
UI Health said in a statement Saturday that, “Should a work stoppage occur, we are prepared to continue safe patient care and ongoing operations” and that, “We value and respect the critical role our nurses and other healthcare professionals play in fulfilling the system’s mission to provide vital care for our community.”
A UI Health spokeswoman did not immediately answer questions Monday morning about specific steps the hospital has taken to continue providing care during the strike. The last time the nurses went on strike in 2020 the hospital brought in temporary nurses, asked ambulances to take new patients elsewhere, didn’t take patient transfers from other hospitals and canceled elective procedures.
The planned, weeklong strike begins at the same time as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago – an event that has local law enforcement and area hospitals on high alert. University of Illinois Hospital is one of the closest hospitals to the United Center, which is where many convention events are taking place. It’s just a little more than a mile away.
The hospital has been preparing for the convention for months.
The Illinois Nurses Association represents the nurses.
The nurses demand “pay that’s on-par with other area hospitals, better staffing and more security at the health system, citing examples of nurses who’ve been attacked by patients.”
The University of Illinois Board of Trustees asked the Cook County Circuit Court to put a temporary restraining order on the strike because the hospital would have a hard time bringing those replacement nurses:
The hospital might have a problem bringing in replacement nurses:
In recent weeks, after the nurses voted to authorize a strike, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees went to Cook County Circuit Court to seek a temporary restraining order to stop some of the nurses from striking, saying the absence could present “a clear and present danger to the health or safety of the public.”
In their complaint, the trustees said because of the convention, it could be especially difficult to find replacement nurses for the week. The staffing agency used by the hospital told the hospital that “many Staffing Agency nurses are not willing to travel to Chicago, Illinois during the DNC for safety reasons, and the Staffing Agency is having a difficult time finding lodging for the traveling nurses due to all area hotels being booked for the DNC,” according to the complaint.
Also, other area hospitals might have trouble accepting UI Health’s patients this week because they might be more busy than usual because of the convention, according to the complaint. Patient transfers could also be difficult because of traffic congestion due to the convention, according to the complaint.
Following those arguments and others, the judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday barring 91 nurses per shift – including those who work in intensive care units and the emergency department – from going on strike in order to “avoid or remove any clear and present danger to the health or safety of the public.” The judge, however, said that with the exception of those nurses, other nurses would be allowed to walk off the job.
The nurses want safety to be a top priority.
Mona Baig, a nurse in the psychiatric unit, said one “patient stabbed her with a pen in the shoulder a couple of years ago.”
Baig needed rotator cuff surgery.
The hospital is not a Level I trauma center.
That means if serious injuries happen at the DNC, the patients will go to Stroger Hospital, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.
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Comments
Can Gov Spritz issue a call to arms to conscript other nurses in the state? I understand the DNC has its own clinic offering elective abortions and vasectomies,
If he does conscript out of town nurses, you can expect that they will be used first to expand the abortion and vasectomy clinic. This is the DNC after all, in Chicago.
Subotai Bahadur
The Judge granted an injuction precluding the bulk of the strike by Nurses doing so in part by relying on the Hospital’s argument they couldn’t get ‘temp/travel Nurses’ to fill in due to security/physical safety concerns…while the current Nursing staff is choosing to strike b/c of the Hospital isn’t adequately addressing their concerns about security/physical safety…
Maybe the Hospital should just agree to pony up the funding for sufficient security staff and provide physical safety to the staff? Of course the funding gotta come from billing patients and with Medicare/Medicaid becoming the predominant payer and their chronic under payment for services the burden on private insurance grows…again.
All part of the plan to crush the private system and replace it with CommieCare.
Got to pay for illegals healthcare somehow
lack of nurses
lack of doctors
lack of pro patriots police
lack of trained atc
lack of pilots
hmmmmmm
seems like the lefty agenda is causing more and more hurt to the
republic for which it stands
University of Chicago (my employer) is also a level 1 trauma center.
We have dealt with a militant nursing union the last few years; the solution has been to remind the nurses that if they didn’t like our salary/benefit offers (top of the scale for the Chicago market), our working conditions, etc., that they could go work elsewhere. UI Health Care should do the same.
That’s the American way.
be careful … they might take you up on it …. U haul and Rider rents vans
every day ….
My daughter was a nurse for over a decade until she became a nurse practitioner a few years ago. She would find it unconscionable to go on strike and leave her patients (and they were patients even when a nurse) without care.
I don’t get these people. They are so small minded as to go out on strike. May plagues be upon them.
If security is an issue … and it seems to be… I wud either strike … blue flu
or find employment else where … like
a red state with lower taxes.
Bill,
Are you kidding?
The nurses are striking because they are being attacked and stabbed.
And don’t forget that the great majority of nurses are female.
Who are generally smaller and weaker than male patients.
Would you continue to work in a job where you could be killed at any moment?
All the hospital has to do is higher armed security to protect the nurses.
They are refusing to do this.
Of course the nurses should strike until they have adequate physical protection.
I found that nursing care in a small town was much better than in a large city. Higher cost of living in a large city, and trouble keeping staff because they could find other jobs.
And there’s another killer campaign ad the GOP will never run:
“A Party so dangerous that people are afraid to be in the same city as their convention!
Do you really want to put these very same people in charge of your entire country??”
How insanely hypocritical of the Democrats in Chicago. The right to strike is a fundamental labor right on the Democrat position. How dare they fight to stop nurses from exercising that fundamental right.
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