University of Vermont Medical Center Healthcare Union Statement Regarding UVMHN Layoffs

We ready? >> Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Nicole Dvita. I'm the president of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. Right now, we are stepping out from an all day bargaining session with management. The contracts for 3,300 support staff and technical professionals expired a month ago. The number one priority for our members going into this contract negotiation was safe staffing. That's why we were shocked and horrified to hear about the over 100 positions eliminated at the medical center yesterday. We want to be super clear. Our hospital, our members who run this hospital do not have the capacity to absorb these cuts. We have already been sounding the alarm about staff and levels at the hospital. We have already been concerned about patient safety. Dr. Leler might talk about making health care more efficient, but care happens at the human level. The most efficient way to care for a patient with dementia or Alzheimer's is to have staff who are available to be with them, to track their needs, to make sure they are not disorientated and panicking or fallen and breaking bones. This is a quality of care that agent verthers deserve. It's the quality of care that I and the fellow members here want to care for our patients, for myself, and the quality of care we cannot provide when we are staffed at dangerous levels. There is not a comprehensive plan for how the patients cared for in the units that are being closed will continue to have their needs met. Those needs are not going away. they will be dealt with in less efficient ways throughout the hospital and it's not this just these two areas in the impatient we have our bar three um inpatient for general medicine and we have a subaccute specialized care um unit at the hospital as well as our walk-in care at the Fanny Allen. These are short-sighted cuts. If the hospital is serious about fiscal sustainability, they need to partner with our unions to champion systemic reform. We've proposed working together to build towards an equitable funded health care system, but management has refused to have those conversations. We cannot cut our way out of this crisis. We need visionary leadership. Cutting care for the most vulnerable is a recipe for disaster for our hospital and for our community. And now we're going to hear from some of the nurses on one of the inpatient units that has had these cuts. Hi, my name is Kellya. I am a nurse on Bair 3. I've worked on Bair 3 for the last two years. Um yesterday morning we all found out that at the end of October they are eliminating our unit. Um this came at a huge shock to everybody. Obviously none of us expected that one day we were going to be told that our jobs were no longer needed. Um, on Bear 3, we help care for a lot of our vulnerable population like our aging population, um, our housing, our houseless community, um, people that people that are vulnerable and need care. I'm scared to wonder how these people are going to receive the care now that they need and they deserve when we're taking away beds that are needed to care for these patients and taking away the staff that we have to care for them. Um, when I was hired on BD 3, I was hired as an LPN. And BARD 3 has remained the only unit in the hospital that actually hires LPNs. And so, taking away BARD 3, I'm wondering where those LPNs are going to go now. How are they supposed to find new jobs in the network when we don't have unit opportunities for them? and I'll pass the mic. >> Hi, my name is Katia Lewis. Um I have uh been a nurse on BARD 3 um just a couple months after it opened. So I've seen the evolution of Bair 3 over the years. Um [clears throat] Barrett 3 has been a unit that says yes. Uh when COVID came around, we were the backup unit um for taking patients with COVID. Um we successfully navigated the cyber attack on UVM. Um we said yes to LPNs and we have some amazing LPNs that have not only flourished in their practice as RNs, but continue flourishing in their practice as LPNs. And we say yes to when there is an overflow of a certain population of patients that need care and we take them and we take excellent care of them and this is reflected in our patient outcomes. uh we have reduced our uh incidence of falls and hospitalacquired infections to a minimal amount and this is because of the excellent care that BARD 3 nurses provide. I am worried about the impact that closing bar 3 has is going to have on our population now that those nurses can no longer practice in that setting. Bed 3 nurses are proud of the care that we provide and we want to provide it and closing bed 3 is going to have a detrimental effect. Hi uh my name is Bridget. I am also a registered nurse on Bird 3. Um I've been on that floor for almost three years now and it has truly become a family. Um I just wanted to bring up you know when is UVMMC uh going to start caring about the patients rather than the amount of money that is being put into their pockets. Um we on bar 3 and you know throughout the hospital have been expected to work with patients with higher acuities um with less resources and staff on our unit. Um, and we have a solid team on Bird 3 and I think it's time for all of the administrators and you know the people who are making these decisions um to come and work on bedside on BARD 3 for a night and you know maybe a week and just get a taste of what it's like being a bedside nurse or an LNA. Um and you know given the little staff and little resources that we are given just you know to see how they would like either being a patient or you know being a staff member. Um I think that they would come to find that they would struggle and they would change their minds um about cutting staff and cutting bar three period. So, >> hi there. Uh, my name is Seer Mccclement. I am an LNA and unit secretary on mccclair 6 where I've been for the last six years. Uh, mccclure 6 is a general medicine and telemetry floor. And uh I've seen what happens on these floors when we don't have enough people to care for the patients who need us the most. Our unit has one of the largest physical capacities in the hospital. And when administration met with us yesterday to discuss the closure of both beard 3 and the long-term care pod, they made it clear to us that the hospital will be shifting a great many of the displaced patients onto our unit. The hospital already struggles to staff our unit as it is. We work short staffed every single day across the hospital. We are being asked to do more with less and we are doing everything in our power to keep it from affecting our patients. Closing these units does not make the work disappear. It shifts the burden onto other units that are already being stretched thin. My co-workers are beyond angry and we are scared for our patients. We refuse to go back to what it was like during COVID. Maximum capacity, barebones staffing, staff getting injured, and patients suffering. In light of these layoffs, this is when we are telling administration it is not the responsibility of the floor staff to figure out along the way how this is going to happen safely. It is their job to come to us with reasonable, workable proposals for how our patients are going to be cared for. We are not asking for anything unreasonable. We are here because we care about our patients and our community. And we are asking for the bare minimum, the staff and the resources that we need to care for them safely. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Keith Brunner. Uh I'm a member of the Vermont Workers Center, an organization of people affected by the healthc care crisis. Uh and I'm a patient at this hospital. Both of my kids were born right behind me uh here in the Mccclure building. As a patient, I am deeply concerned about the effect on patient care and patient safety of these cuts and layoffs. People I know are already avoiding necessary care. They're going into medical debt. They're waiting forever for appointments. They're dealing with skyigh health insurance. They're concerned they might be one of the thousands of people who lose their health care when Medicaid work requirements kick in January 1st. There is a real health care crisis. But one thing is clear, the way to address that crisis is not to cut patient care. It is not to cut essential services that our communities rely on. The truth is that we need systemic changes in the way we pay for and deliver health care to move from a largely privatized fragmented system towards one that's organized around meeting people's health care needs. And that's why it's so exciting that this union has had an open invitation to management to partner with them on that kind of systemic change. 10 years ago, UVM Health pledged to use its leading role in Vermont's health care system to shift resources towards primary and preventative care and make some of these changes. But instead, they spent the past decade spending millions on executives and squandered over hund00 million in Vermont Medicaid money on a failed payment reform scheme. As a patient, as a member of the worker center, I am outraged by these cuts. And it's even more frustrating knowing that management has so far refused to work with the healthare workers with the unions in their invitation to partner on systemic healthcare reforms like establishing universal public financing. And that's why I'm here today. Uh worker center folks are here. Folks across the state and our communities are here joining the workers in calling for a reversal of these cuts to patientf facing roles and calling on management to work with the unions with advocates with policy makers on systemic healthcare reforms that we need. Um I'm going to say healthcare is a human right. Can we all say that together? Health care is a human right. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Amanda Janu. I'm an economist, a Vermoner. I'm running for governor because I refuse to accept that collapse is inevitable or that the best a governor can do is just manage decline. And I'm so honored to be here with all of our healthc care to stand in solidarity with the unions with our healthcare workers in this moment where I know that there must be an incredible amount of like sadness and fear around losing so many more of your colleagues when you're already doing so much um to try to take care of patients and our community. And I think that it's important in this moment to recognize what it the fundamental purpose of health care because it's not a balance sheet. It's not a building. It's really people taking care of people. And these layoffs are a wake-up call. So we're once again seeing another round of cuts at UVM Health. We're seeing a general medicine unit being closed. We're seeing cuts to mental health technicians in a moment when we are in a mental health crisis. But it's important to note that this is bigger than just one hospital because we also just saw Dartmouth Hitchcock for example going through a similar round of layoffs. So this is bigger than UVM. This is bigger than Vermont. We have to recognize that our health care system is fundamentally broken and that in moments where we hospitals are forced to make cuts, our profit oriented insurance and fee for service structure often rewards, surgeries and other types of procedures relative to the type of relational care that is actually most essential whether that's primary, preventative, maternal, elder care. And so when hospitals end up cutting those types of services and cutting workers as a ways to save money, they ultimately are ending up removing our communities from the type of most essential care that they need. And I too believe that healthcare is a human right and that Vermont has to move towards a universal health care system. And I'm don't think we can solve everything overnight, but we do have to make bold changes right now because the reality is that we haven't even begun to feel the pains of the healthc care cuts that are coming from the big beautiful bill that are going to impact all of our communities right after this November election. And so this is a moment where we can start making bold steps. For example, by advancing universal primary and preventative health care by having the state actually pay our health care providers directly so we can remove the fee for service structure and profit oriented insurance from that starting point. It's also a moment where we need to start working with other states who are also going to be in a similar situation to figure out how do we ensure that we are advancing universal health care for everyone. And so I'm also very grateful that the union has made one of the core demands to have uh the UVM medical center sit at the table and really think about how do we build this next system because this can't be a situation where we keep asking our workers to do more and more with less. This is a moment when we all have to be coming together to think about what is this next system going to look like and how do we work together as government, as unions, as hospitals to make sure that we are delivering the kind of healthcare that we need most because our resilience is going to be determined by actually investing in Vermont. One of the interesting things I noted from this coverage was like the UVM Medical Center has almost a billion and a half of reserves and they recognize that those reserves are vulnerable because they're connected to the stock market. And I think that that's actually really wise to recognize that vulnerability, but the very best investment you can ever make is in one's own community. It's going to be the safest and it's going to be the one that returns the largest in terms of that investment. So invest in our workers, invest in our staff, invest in our communities and our businesses and make sure that we are seeing that type of multiplication so that we are not only building a diverse and resilient economy, but we are supporting every Vermoner with a good job and meaningful work caring for others in their community because we do have extraordinary healthcare workers. We have worldclass medical institutions and I want to make sure that we're building on those strengths. So, let's take care of the people who take care of us and together let's build a health care system we know is possible. Thank you. >> Bargaining team can head back in and everybody else can stay. All right, bargaining team, we can head back in, but um everybody else can stay out if there's any additional questions or comments that anybody wants to make. Thank you, everybody. >> I have two jobs. I'm Can I grab um >> Jacob, >> do you want to stay to do interviews very quickly to help them go faster so that you guys can go back inside? >> Um, hey, the bargaining team's going to have to head back in soon. So I just if you wanted to interview leadership at all now would be the moment and then other folks are able to hang out a little bit longer. So I think we'll probably >> for sure. Um Jacob can do an interview right now. He's the president of one of the >> perfect can we pull from what he just said. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm a medical assistant at the Fanny Allen Urgent Care and I'm here to support one of um the nurses, full-time nurse that got cut from our department. And >> yeah. >> So, have you been involved in any of these rallies up to this point, or is this your first rally that you've attended? >> This is the first one that I've attended. Um I've been working at the urgent care center for two years now. Um, and >> this is the first one only because of time constraints, but this was an important one. Yeah. >> So, how do the people that you work with, how do they feel about everything? So, we've just heard that everyone is upset because of certain cuts, etc., and the inability of the management of the hospitals to negotiate. So, what do you and the people you work with think? >> Yeah. Um, we were shocked last week. We were told that there would be no cuts at the urgent care clinic. And then yesterday morning, all of our nurses got an email that there would be a mandatory meeting. Um they got that email at 6:30 a.m. and the meeting was at 7:50 a.m. 10 minutes before our 12-hour work shift. And they were there was a nurse that was told at 10 minutes before her shift that her position would be cut. And so we were distraught. We are shocked and kind of at a loss of what moving forward looks like. >> So, >> so how do you think the union is doing? Are you familiar with anything that the union does? Is the union >> doing are you comfortable comfortable with what the union is doing? >> Yeah, the union is a huge support and I have leaned on them for support in the past and they have really helped me personally. Um, I know they are for us and are really strong advocates for what health care should look like and what supporting healthcare workers in order to support our patients means. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Unless you have questions, more questions for me. >> Um, my name is Kelly Bristol. I'm one of the registered nurses who works on BARD 3 at UVMC. Um yesterday we did find out that at the end of October they are cutting the entire unit of beard 3. This came at a this is a huge shock to everybody. Um I don't think anybody would have seen this coming for our unit. Um we serve a large population of our community. Um we work very hard. We have very amazing nurses, amazing LNAS, um amazing managers, and an amazing educator that all work alongside of us. Um we serve a large amount of our aging population and our houseless population. Um, you know, sometimes people come in to bear three and they're only with us for a couple of days before they get to go home and others require maybe weeks of IV antibiotic therapy. Um, and it's >> it's hard trying to think about what is going to happen to the people in these populations when we are closing down resources and beds for these people. Um, it's just sad to think about, especially when a lot of these people in the populations that I'm referencing, they're already very underserved and already have a lot of coorbidities that go along with what they're already dealing with. So, um, it's sad and I'm just going to try to remain hopeful that, um, people are going to be able to get new jobs. um at the very least that we can get new jobs and we can keep doing what we love to do. >> So,