MEDIA ADVISORY: Home Care Nurses To Lead Candlelight Vigil To Close Historic Strike At PeaceHealth, Feb. 23 (Photo) -02/22/24
Nurses and elected officials are calling on PeaceHealth to commit to a fair contract agreement that improves community health and safety and addresses its staffing and care crises.
(Springfield, Ore.) – Striking home care nurses, elected leaders and community allies will hold a candlelight vigil near PeaceHealth’s offices in Springfield Friday, Feb. 23 at 6 p.m. The event will include speeches and media availability and marks the end of nurses’ limited duration strike at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services.
Home health and hospice nurses at PeaceHealth declared a strike Feb. 10 - 24 to protect their community’s health and safety, combat care delays, secure equitable pay and address PeaceHealth’s staffing crisis at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services.
The more than 90 registered nurses at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services are represented by the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA).
WHAT: ONA-represented nurses at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services will hold a candlelight vigil to discuss PeaceHealth’s pattern of health care cuts in Lane County; its impact on local patients and providers; and how nurses and allies can hold PeaceHealth accountable to our community.
WHEN: Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. 6 - 6:45 p.m.
WHERE: Intersection of MLK Jr./Beltline and Game Farm Rd. near PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center Riverbend in Springfield, OR. Street parking is available nearby. However participants are encouraged to park at ONA’s strike headquarters and shuttle to and from the vigil. ONA strike headquarters is located at 1075 International Way, Springfield, OR.
WHO: Home health and hospice nurses at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services, hospital nurses, doctors, patients, elected officials, and community allies.
WHY: PeaceHealth’s corporate executives in Washington have spent the last year low-balling home care nurses in contract negotiations—insisting they are worth less than PeaceHealth Sacred Heart hospital nurses at Riverbend and less than nurses at other home care agencies. PeaceHealth’s disrespect towards nurses and their patients has driven nearly a quarter of nurses at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services to leave. Another one-third of nurses plan to leave if PeaceHealth continues shortchanging patients and providers. Fewer nurses means home-bound patients and their families suffer from care delays, receive fewer treatments and ring up costly hospital readmissions bills.
PeaceHealth’s failure to retain and recruit home care nurses has real impacts for vulnerable patients who are experiencing delays and a loss of service. PeaceHealth was only able to admit 57% of hospital-referred home care patients into its programs in a timely fashion in October. The national average is 95%.
Nurses began negotiating with PeaceHealth executives in February 2023 and have been working on an expired contract since April 2023.
Since receiving nurses’ strike notice Jan. 19, PeaceHealth has committed multiple unfair labor practices including refusing to meet and bargain in good faith with local nurses and for threatening to terminate health insurance for home care nurses and their families.
Coming off of a successful limited duration strike, nurses are again asking PeaceHealth executives in Washington to come to the table and reach a fair contract agreement that enables them to recruit and retain the highly skilled and valuable nurses who care for some of the most complex home care patients in the state.
Nurses are not discouraging patients from seeking care during the strike, however PeaceHealth patients may experience delays, cancellations or substandard care as PeaceHealth refused to temporarily transfer patients to other home health agencies and is relying on scab workers from an out-of-state, for-profit company.
The Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) is the state’s largest and most influential nursing organization. We are a professional association and labor union which represents more than 18,000 nurses and allied health workers throughout the state, including more than 90 nurses at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services and nearly 1,500 frontline nurses at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center. ONA’s mission is to advocate for nursing, quality health care and healthy communities. For more information visit: www.OregonRN.org.
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Friday, Feb. 23. Press Contact: Kevin Mealy, 765-760-2203, Mealy@OregonRN.org
- 11:00 am – 1:00 pm: Nurse Press Availability on Strike Line by appointment
- 6 p.m. Candlelight Vigil. Nurses are holding a vigil to talk about PeaceHealth’s repeated care cuts in our community, its impact on vulnerable patients and our hopes for the future.
Saturday, Feb. 24. No Scheduled Events
