National Nurses United (NNU), a California-based union with 175,000 members, is blaming hospitals for nursing shortages that have arisen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a news release issued last Thursday, NNU said that chronic understaffing by hospitals has driven away many nurses who are not "willing to risk their licenses or the safety of their patients by working under unsafe conditions in hospitals."
The union claims there is no nursing shortage in the US as a whole, citing a 2017 report from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that found there will be enough RNs to meet the nation's health needs through 2030.
NNU does, however, admit that nurses are inequitably distributed across the country and that there are shortages in some areas.
The inadequate supply of nurses in some states, the union claims, is a direct result of hospitals' treatment of frontline nurses. Even before the COVID crisis, NNU alleges, hospitals understaffed every unit and every shift to maximize profits and "excess revenue."
Hospitals also have not maintained "a robust pool of nurses from which to draw when scheduling shifts," NNU states.
During the COVID pandemic, the union adds, "hospitals rejected nurses' advice…to prepare and plan for predictable staffing needs, including hiring and training more nurses, and cross-training current staff nurses to work in critical care departments.
