Nurses criticize main medical center to compare employee COVID-19 benefits

The main medical center nurses’ union accused hospital owners on Wednesday of increasing workplace risk by withdrawing benefits provided to protect employees early in the COVID-19 pandemic.

But hospital officials said part of the reason the profits were changing was due to the complex network of federal regulations they had to obey.

The changes include provisions to prevent employees from paying quarantine. People infected with COVID-19 in the community or at home. These employees should use their paid leave or work from home if possible. Maine Med also no longer allows pregnant employees to pay the full amount and return home from the 37th week of pregnancy until childbirth.

The added pregnancy allowance means that the nurse did not need to use paid leave allowance or other maternity allowance after the 37th week, but the allowance is scheduled to end on October 1.

MainMed nurse Madison Wright said at a press conference outside the hospital on Wednesday that nurses and other health care workers were “exhausted, frustrated, and stretched to physical and emotional limits. “. Maine Med nurses resolved to form a union in late April and joined the Maine State Nurses Association. The union, which represents about 2,000 Mainmed nurses, is currently negotiating the first contract with the hospital.

“Last year, Mainmed did some really good things that protected us and our patients and made life a little better in incredibly difficult situations,” Wright said. .. “Over the past few weeks, MainMed has told us that we will end all of these protections for all of MainMed’s employees, not just the nurses.”

According to Wright, nurses said that worker protection was “no longer needed” because healthcare workers now need to be vaccinated under state obligations.

“But as nurses, we know that vaccines that are as important as they are to end this pandemic are not silver bullets,” Wright said. “We also know that it is not time to remove the protection that has helped both staff and patients here from fast-moving variants during the outbreak of infection.”

Another benefit for MainMed workers, which may disappear on October 1, is COVID-19 treatment, which includes out-of-pocket, deductions, cost sharing, or joint insurance payments that are usually the responsibility of the patient. It is a full payment of the cost of.

John Porter, a spokesman for Maine Health, the parent company of Maine Medical Center, said the hospital is arranging strict federal regulations and regulations surrounding its profits, but expanding profits beyond October 1 is “under discussion.” Said that.

Clay Holtzman, a spokesman for Maine Med, said: I understand the complaints of nurses and other care team members. (Mainmed) continues to do everything possible to support them during this difficult time. “

Holtzmann said the change in quarantine wages was in line with recommendations from the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He said that employees infected with COVID-19 still receive full quarantine wages, but employees exposed in the community and at home but not infected do not. In some situations, exposed and quarantined but uninfected people may be quarantined for a short period of several days, Holtzmann said.

Nurses said Maine Health’s policy of providing “medical facilities” to change the schedule and working conditions of employees at high risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 was said to end. But Holtzmann said the policy remains valid.

Amy Strum, a nurse in the emergency room, said the hospital had an influx of COVID-19 patients, making it difficult for staff to catch up.

“There are few breaks,” Strum said. “We are under a lot of stress. Often we have to pull out nurses from other units to come to the COVID unit.”

According to the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospitals throughout the state are experiencing a surge in COVID-19 infections with 150 inpatients on Wednesday. This is the highest number of hospitalizations since February 4th at the height of the pandemic.

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