PETITION OF NO CONFIDENCE

PETITION OF NO CONFIDENCE

at ST. MICHAEL MEDICAL CENTER
We, the undersigned, hereby submit the following letter to Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Chief Executive Officer Ketul Patel:

Our community has been advocating for a safe hospital for years as workers repeatedly sound the alarm on the serious issues plaguing St. Michael Medical Center. Unfortunately, after years of ineffective response, and after workers have had to repeatedly report their concerns to hospital leadership through committee meetings, contract negotiations, and very publicly through picketing, media, and outreach to legislative officials, the health care workers’ pleas have been met with empty promises as the situation continues to deteriorate.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We demand change, we demand action, we demand that you take the concerns of your workers and the community seriously and make significant changes at St. Michael Medical Center.

We have lost confidence in the leadership team at St. Michael Medical Center and request that you start with the resignation of both President Chad Melton and Chief Nursing Officer Jeanell Rasmussen.
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Click here for more information about the issues at St. Michael Medical Center
Background Information:

In the summer of 2022, nurses at St Michael Medical Center narrowly averted a strike after contentious negotiations for a fair union contract. Healthcare workers were hopeful that hospital administration had learned from that experience and would become sincere and serious about their commitments for serious change. They did not.

On October 8 the situation reached a breaking point, and an Emergency Department nurse called CenCom on a non-emergency line to request if the fire department had any capacity to help care for patients because the conditions were unsafe due to short staffing[i]. Instead of immediately taking action to address the extreme staffing issues, the hospital administration fired the Emergency Department Director.

Unfortunately, the shocking event in the Emergency Department is just one in a long list of issues under the current leadership of the medical center. Other issues include, but are not limited to:
- Chronic staffing issues that have persisted since before the COVID-19 pandemic and only seemed to have gotten worse under the current leadership team,
- Significant infection control issues that caused a very public outbreak in August 2020[ii] and led to a rare joint hazard alert from both the Department of Labor & Industries and Department of Health[iii],
- Constant payroll errors that take months to rectify, delaying accurate payment to healthcare workers and further contributing to staff burnout,
- Recent layoffs of Health Unit Coordinators and Transporters, both of which provide key support to patient care,
- Despite new facilities, maintenance issues persist with elevators down, negative air pressure rooms not working properly, and many other maintenance issues,
- Leadership refusing healthcare workers requests to divert patients to neighboring hospitals when the medical center does not have the staff to safely accept additional patients,
- The Joint Commission, a national healthcare standards group, gave the medical center a preliminary denial of accreditation citing its assessment of concerns, “which in the Joint Commission's view, poses a threat to patients or other individuals served.”[iv]
UFCW Local 3000 healthcare workers have been reporting their concerns to hospital leadership for years through committee meetings, contract negotiations, and very publicly through picketing. Worker’s pleas have been met with empty promises as the situation continues to deteriorate.

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[i] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/short-staffed-hospital-silverdale-calls-firefighters-help-treat-patients/7LVL5FFD4RADXL5NKBETHWFN4Q
[ii] https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/covid-19-outbreak-st-michael-medical-center-bremerton/281-8090e483-ac6b-4575-86b5-8f36ca98e993
[iii] https://www.lni.wa.gov/safety-health/preventing-injuries-illnesses/hazardalerts/HazardAlertCOVIDHealthCare.pdf
[iv] https://www.qualitycheck.org/accreditation-history/?bsnId=9576
Should be Empty: