Mercy Suburban Nurses Ratify Union Contract, Averting Strike. Nurses Win Improvements in Staffing, Preserve Affordable Health Insurance

East Norriton, PA - The 175 Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses of the Suburban General Nurses Association, a local of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, ratified a new union contract with Mercy Suburban Hospital today. The vote for the contract averted a strike that had been scheduled to start at 7 a.m. on Saturday, October 1 st .

The 4-year agreement will raise nurses' salaries on average by 6% each year, and strictly limits how much nurses will pay for health insurance and prescription drugs. Nurses currently pay between 5% and 12% of the cost of their insurance, depending on the plan each nurse selects. Nurses also won improvements in on-call pay, shift differentials, and the Hospital's long-term disability plan.

"As our patient population has gotten sicker and demanded more attention, we've had less and less time to deliver vital nursing care," said Elizabeth Doyle RN, President of SGNA. "Union nurses demanded that the Hospital hire more nurses, and ensure that they maintain excellent pay and benefits so that we can attract and retain the staff our patients need. We accomplished those goals in this contract."

A crucial part of the agreement is a commitment by Mercy Suburban to hire 5 more full-time nurses in "floating" positions, who will be available to fill in for nurses who are ill or to provide crucial nursing care when the patient census in the hospital rises unexpectedly.

"Our goal is for the Hospital to promise to limit the number of patients they will assign to a single nurse," said Bernice Friedemann, an RN in Suburban's ICU who has worked at Suburban for 33 years. "We're very happy that we persuaded them to expand our nursing staff, but we won't stop fighting for safer staffing at Suburban."

The Pennsylvania Department of Health has proposed regulations requiring that there be no more than 2 patients for every nurse present in a critical care unit of a hospital in Pennsylvania . Nurses voting at the ratification meetings were given information on how to send comments to the Department of Health supporting these proposed regulations.

PASNAP , the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, represents 5,000 Registered Nurses and other professionals at hospitals statewide, including Crozer Chester Medical Center, Temple University Hospital, Temple Northeastern Hospital, Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, Mercy Suburban Hospital, and Lower Bucks Hospital.