More than 780 employees and several hundred nurses are staffing Indiana Regional Medical Center for normal operations today during a strike by union nurses.
All scheduled appointments, procedures, surgeries, as well as Emergency
Room services are all available as they are every day. During the first day of the first nursing strike in IRMC’s history, the hospital’s leadership team said they are prepared and actively involved in managing operations, including the oversight of replacement nurses who are accustomed to working in such situations.
The Board of Directors and Administration of IRMC had prepared for the possibility of a strike but hoped that the union representing its nurses would complete their negotiating sessions and bargain in good faith and get nurses to
vote on a new contract before asking them to strike.
IRMC Board of Directors’ Vice Chair Nathan Kovalchick said, “On behalf of our Board of Directors, I am disappointed that the nurses we rely on chose to strike. At a most difficult time in the history of IRMC, the union leaders led their
members to a strike that essentially left us with two choices – close the hospital or figure out a way to continue operating for the community we serve. Our Board remains focused on upholding IRMC’s mission to provide the highest quality health care every day. We’re hopeful that our nurses fully understand how much we value their service.”
“As a nonprofit, sole community provider, we have an obligation to provide access to health care at all times,” said IRMC CEO Stephen Wolfe. “When they called for a strike, PSEA leaders were not as concerned about access to health
care for the community or that our nurses, in effect, would have to walk out on the patients they care about for the purpose of a strike that likely would have been settled if negotiations were completed before walking out. Nor were
they concerned about the cost of replacement nurses to their next contract, or our longer term goal of hoping to remain independent.”
IRMC planned for the possibility of replacement nurses to make certain that, in the event of a strike, the hospital can fully operate effectively with a full complement of top-notch replacement nurses this week. The staffing agency
specializes in mobilizing replacement nurses in hospitals experiencing strikes. They have brought to Indiana the best nurses and require a five-day minimum which will result in a net cost of $1.5 million in an unbudgeted expense which
IRMC intends to deduct from its last contract proposal.
Regular staff nurses were welcome to report to work today in order to have available work for the rest of this week and not lose a week’s worth of wages.
The next bargaining session is set for Nov. 29.