The Nurses

of Berkshire Medical Center Need

Your Support to Ensure Safe
Patient Care in Berkshire County
The registered nurses of Berkshire Medical Center will be conducting
informational picketing outside the hospital today from 2 5 p.m. to
protest what we believe are inadequate staffing levels, excessive
patient assignments for nurses and a punitive work environment that
is compromising the quality and safety of care for patients we serve
throughout Berkshire County.

The Public Needs to Know

There has been a marked deterioration in patient care conditions in

recent months driven by the hospitals refusal to increase staffing to
account for a significant increase in patient census following the sudden
and illegal closure of North Adams Regional Hospital.

Nurses in the hospitals emergency department report being

overwhelmed with patients who are waiting longer for needed
care and attention, and the inability to move patients through the
system due to the lack of adequate staff on other units.

To compensate for the lack of appropriate RN staffing to meet the

increased demand, nurses are taking on extra patients at a time when the
medical research clearly shows that when nurses take on too many patients
at one time, the risk of negative patient outcomes increases dramatically.

The hospital is making up for the shortage of staff by the use of widespread
floating of nurses, a process that involves moving nurses from unit to
unit. At BMC, when nurses are shuffled from unit to unit, there is no
continuity of care, and no guarantee that the nurse caring for a particular
patient is fully competent to provide the level of care the patient requires.

Finally, in addition to the lack of staffing and unsafe working conditions,

nurses are protesting an increasingly punitive management culture at the
hospital where nurses report increased pressure on staff to work extra shifts or
longer hours, unwarranted discipline of nurses, and intense pressure to speed up
care regardless of its impact on the nurses well-being and the safety of the patients.

The degradation of patient care at BMC is coming at a time when Berkshire Medical
Center continues to make a healthy profit, posting profits of more than $90 million over
the last three years.
As nurses we provide 90 percent of the clinical care you receive at BMC when you are the
most vulnerable. We take great pride in that responsibility and we are taking this action
today out of a sense of duty to protect our patients and the communities we serve.

Help Us Help You

Contact BMC CEO David E. Phelps at 413-447-2750 or dphelps@bhs1.org
and tell him to listen to his nurses and put patients before profits; to
provide the staffing and services our patients need to be safe.