Nurses must focus on best care for patients

The right of U.S. workers to choose union membership and to enter into collective bargaining is clear. Federal laws sanction and protect such activities. So why is the union vote scheduled for later this week at St. Francis Medical Center causing such an uproar?

Enough nurses at the hospital have indicated they want the right to vote on union representation, and the National Labor Relations Board has certified an election Thursday and Friday on allowing the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 655 to represent nearly 400 nurses in contract negotiations.

Based on stories that have been published in the Southeast Missourian, letters to the editor and Speak Out calls, the issues being raised by nurses who favor a union are concerns and problems that these same nurses would find at almost any hospital in the nation. There is a shortage of nurses. Many nurses are asked to work extra hours. And while pay at hospitals in Cape Girardeau appears to be competitive, compensation is an issue too.

The process leading up to a union vote at St. Francis has generated claims on both sides that sound rancorous and harsh. In the emotion and heat of claims and counterclaims, there are disagreements and disputes about the situation and what the union can do about it that are bound to occur.

But some of the wounds may be deep enough that they will take time to heal. Some of the things that have been said in recent days may leave some scars.

While no one denies the nursing shortage and the extra hours nurses are putting in, you have to wonder what joining a union can do about this nationwide crisis. More than that, the focus on the concerns of some nurses has diverted, as far as the public is concerned, attention from the most critical issue of all: good patient care.

Let's hope the nurses who vote on union representation this week think long and hard about whether or not a union and collective bargaining will mean better care for the patients at St. Francis Medical Center -- which, by the way, has documented through surveys and comparisons to other hospitals that patient satisfaction already is very high. Figures recently announced by the hospital show the emergency room has a 97 percent satisfaction rating, surpassing nearly all of the 159 hospitals nationwide included in a ratings survey.

Whatever the outcome of the union vote this week, the delivery of first-rate health care must continue to have the highest priority. Thanks to two outstanding hospitals -- St. Francis and Southeast Missouri Hospital -- plus some 600 doctors and hundreds of others who help provide health care, Cape Girardeau has rightfully claimed its special status as a regional health center, the largest between St. Louis and Memphis.

Perhaps it is the backdrop of this record of outstanding health services that magnifies the claims being made by nurses on both sides as they consider unionization.