Some Prison Nurses Earning More Than $100,000 In Overtime A Year, Costing Taxpayers Millions
While about 50 nursing vacancies exist, the prisons rely on volunteer overtime to accommodate the shortages. In other health worker news: limits proposed on the number of patients a nurse can see, reinstated health care workers are turned away on eve of union vote, and a new movement in paramedicine.
The Associated Press:
Overtime Pay For Prison Nurses Costs Millions Of Tax Dollars
Thousands of hours of overtime worked by Ohio prison nurses in recent years have cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The Plain Dealer reports overtime for registered nurses in the prison system has increased by nearly 60 percent since 2012. The newspaper says its analysis of payroll records show some prison hospital nurses have earned over $100,000 in overtime in one year. (6/18)
State News House Service:
Nurse Staffing Initiative Petition Survives Court Challeng
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Monday that the initiative petition seeking to impose limits on the number of patients a nurse can be assigned to care for at a time can go to voters on the November ballot. The SJC rejected a challenge brought by a hospital-backed group, which argued that Attorney General Maura Healey should not have certified the ballot initiative supported by a major nurses union because it contained two provisions that did not relate closely enough to each other. (Young, 6/18)
Boston Globe:
Reinstated Whittier Workers Say They Were Blocked From Center
A group of Whittier Street Health Center workers who were laid off suddenly late last week, then apparently reinstated on Sunday, said they were kicked off the property when they tried to attend a staff meeting at the Roxbury clinic on Monday. The center has not communicated directly with the 20 workers who were let go, they said, many of whom supported a union campaign that they believe is behind the layoffs. (Johnston, 6/18)
US News & World Report:
The Growing 'Guerrilla’ Movement In Paramedicine
Shirley worked in nursing for a quarter-century, but her professional expertise hasn't kept her healthy. In October, the 63-year-old native of Raleigh, North Carolina, was hospitalized for a fall and learned she was at risk of congestive heart failure – her blood pressure was "in the roof," she says. She stayed in the hospital about two weeks."I was in bad shape," says Shirley, who also has diabetes, vision problems and weighed about 225 pounds at the time. She asked that U.S. News not divulge her last name to protect her privacy. "I couldn't hardly walk, couldn't hardly do nothing, couldn't hardly think." (Galvin and Cline, 6/19)
