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Registered nurses and health care technicians marched back and forth with signs and posters Wednesday afternoon in front of Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia as they called for safer staffing levels and better benefits.
It’s been nearly one year since staff voted to form a union with the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP). Contract negotiations are ongoing with the hospital’s new owners, Temple Health, which took over in 2023.
Nurses say staffing shortages that preceded Temple’s ownership and have now continued are preventing health care workers from properly caring for their patients and maintaining a safe environment for staff.
“We have too many patients per nurse,” said registered nurse Alyssa Afflerback. “We’re understaffed and we’re stretching ourselves so thin every day when we come in here.”
Afflerback said staffing issues have become exacerbated by patient overflow coming from Temple Health’s other hospitals and locations in the city.
“There was definitely an influx of people in our ER, which means there’s an influx of people on the floors, and there aren’t any more nurses,” she said. “A lot of people have left because of short staffing, because we don’t feel safe all the time.”