"Gestapo" tactics at use at BGH

The administration at Bonner General Hospital has recently fired two nurses in the Family Centered Care Unit. They were fired in retaliation for asking to have some input in the philosophy, policy and procedures in the department where they had worked, one for 12 years and one for over 25 years.

They were given no recourse and no chance to defend themselves. These are two experienced labor and delivery nurses who loved their job and were extremely competent, well-informed, caring nurses. They love this community and helping your children and grandchildren into the world safely.

I am a nurse in the Family Centered Care Unit. I will truly miss these nurses, and I can assure you the community as a whole will also. For the next many months we will either have traveling nurses who have questionable training, salaries that are exorbitant and have not ties to this community, or the nurses already on staff will be pressed to work more or take on more patients than they can reasonably handle.

The administration has let the staff go from 20 to about 13. Three were fired without just cause, one resigned because she could not continue to work in this hostile environment. Most of us constantly fear for our jobs. We have no support because the director of Human Resources who is supposed to be an employee advocate is not one.

These are truly adverse working conditions.

I am not an eloquent writer so I am going to use a quote from Robin Cook, an author and physician. It was in the author's note in one of his recent novels:

"Quite simply there is a severe nursing shortage in the United States and our hospitals, even our premier academic centers are forced to continuously recruit nurses. This recruitment extends to other countries, including under-developed nations. The combination of low compensation and the pressure to increase productivity (translated into forcing individual nurses to take on more patients than they can reasonably handle) has created enough of an adverse working environment that experience nurses seek alternate employment, and young men and women reluctant to begin the long arduous, and expensive training.

"What makes this particularly unfortunate is that we all know (at least those who have experienced hospitalization) that the onus of care is not on the doctors who write the orders and leave to go back to their busy offices or cozy homes but the nurses who stay and carry them out. And for those people who have suffered a major problem in the hospital, it's more likely than not that it was a nurse who recognized it, call the physicians, and instituted lifesaving care.

"In my opinion and experience we need less high priced administration, and better pay and optimum working conditions for our beleaguered nurses who are in the trenches and actually taking care of people."

We are not talking more pay here. We are looking for the optimum working conditions. We need respect for our expertise and to be consulted in changes that affect our department. Our unit is run like a Gestapo and anyone who disagrees better get out of the way.

JANET LANE, RN

Sandpoint