The American …show more content…
Cloud State University stated ,“The most intuitive argument against the morality of nurses’ strikes is that they cause harm to patients.” (Neiman, 2011, p.597). He also stated in his article “A study of nurses’ strikes in New York between 1984 and 2004 shows that hospital mortality rates increased by 19.4% and 30-day readmission rates increased by 6.5% for patients admitted during the strike.” (Neiman, 2011, p.597). This statement may sound negative to the average person, but it is not negative to someone who has background knowledge involving nursing strikes. The nurses participating in the strikes during that period of time submitted a required 10-day waiting period to striking. This 10-day waiting period is so that hospitals can find replacements for the nurses, also known as scrub nurses. According to an article I read by Nina Bernstein hospitals tend to pay the scrub nurses more than twice the average nurses hourly pay. A quote Found in the same article by Nina Bernstein stated “a cancer patient was attributed to a medical error by one of 500 temporary nurses hired to replace those locked out for several days after their 24-hour strike. The death is still under investigation, but The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a dietary supplement was mistakenly fed into the patient 's intravenous line.” This study shows that scrub nurses are not as qualified as the nurses who are on strike. The scrub nurse in that scenario did not have prior knowledge of the cancer patient and therefore could not provide the proper care. If the regular nurses were at the hospital and not striking they would’ve had the patient history and prior knowledge of the patient to be able to feed the patient properly, and not cause death over a frivolous mistake. This shows that the hospitals are at fault. The hospitals had plenty of time to provide their patients with adequate healthcare and failed. The