• Nobody wins in a strike • Return to bargaining table • Hopes friends on both sides can work things out • ADU for who? Nobody wins in a strike I am a lifelong resident of Kaua‘i and I spent
• Nobody wins in a strike
• Return to bargaining table
• Hopes friends on both sides can work things out
• ADU for who?
Nobody wins in a strike
I am a lifelong resident of Kaua‘i and I spent most of my nursing career working for Wilcox Hospital. Since the merger with Kapiolani and Straub, I have been working at the board level for Hawaii Pacific Health. The news of a nursing strike is a very difficult blow to me and indeed to all of us on Kaua‘i.
It is my understanding that a generous package of a 21-percent wage increase over three years in keeping with our nurses throughout the state has been refused. A vote to walk out has been made.
Those of us who have experienced a strike at any point in our lives realize that this action has drastic consequences. During a strike and afterward, relationships are challenged, trust is broken, and often bad feelings prevail over a long time. One might say, “nobody wins.”
Everyday the news regarding healthcare in our state and nation is alarming because the industry as a whole is termed “in crisis” as a result of mounting cost and inadequate reimbursement for service and care rendered. Healthcare effects each of us in our daily lives. If there was ever a time to work together toward a common and reasonable goal, it is now.
Return to bargaining table
As Chairman of the Board of Directors of Wilcox Hospital, I am deeply disappointed and saddened that our nurses and their union could not reach an agreement and have decided that a strike is their only way to resolve their concerns. The Wilcox Hospital board serves as a strong advocate for safe patient care. We have made patient care and safety the number one initiative for the hospital. We regularly spend time reviewing the quality of service being provided, and push for change as it appears necessary. I would like to reassure the community that the care and treatment provided by all our staff at Wilcox is of the highest quality and meets or exceeds all of the standards of the Joint Commission for Hospital Accreditation. During this unfortunate strike Wilcox Hospital is open and available to meet the needs of our patients without any compromise to safety.
I am quite distressed that our nurses feel that leaving the patient’s bedside and walking a picket line is a way to resolve any concerns that they might have. I would ask them and their union to consider the harm this is doing to relationships of long standing, as well as the self-inflicted economic losses, and to reconsider their position and return to the bargaining table. It is my firm opinion that such action would be in the best interests of the nurses, the hospital, and all of those that we serve. Me ke aloha pumehana.
- Paul T. Douglass
Chairman of the Board Wilcox Memorial Hospital
Hopes friends on both sides can work things out
Today (Friday, June 23) I noticed Wilcox Health’s large advertisement in TGI. As a third-generation railroad family member I am intimately familiar with hardball labor/management interaction. The ad appeared to me as a classic example of management’s attempts to confuse the issues in order to gain public support. To put those issues in an overly simplified, “FAQ” format also seemed condescending. It would appear from their own words that Wilcox would prefer to establish a “committee” to address what they say is not an issue in the first place, but they want the nurses to first agree to the contract before they will agree to the committee.
As a scientist, I first wonder how doing away with ratio staffing in favor of “patient-based” staffing can be rationally implemented. Patient conditions change rapidly. Patient loads can change just as rapidly. How does one reassess those conditions and pull in more staff, or drop staff in a timely manner that does not compromise overall patient care? The explanations offered by the ad are at best highly generalized, do not offer specific data to back up the assertions (other than “that’s how it’s done at other hospitals” — although they don’t say if those “other hospitals” are ones they control). Just because a system is used at other hospitals also does not mean that it is necessarily the best option.
I have friends who are nurses and physicians. The nurses are not, I feel, being unreasonable at all. For them, it is not about the money; at least not the money going to them, the nurses. Management seems to feel it’s about the money — what it would cost to employ a staffing system that staff feels is reasonable.
I do hope the parties can work this out. This is hardly the way we prefer to work out such differences on Kaua‘i. Besides, we’ve got enough “stuff” going on with county government to keep everybody busy.
- W. Elaine Albertson, MA
Digital Arts of Waimea. Waimea
ADU for who?
Attn. Members of the County Council:
I would just like to go on record as being adamantly opposed to allowing the ADU provision for open and ag-zoned land to “sunset” at the end of 2006. There are hundreds of families who own open and ag-zoned land that, under the current ADU statute, qualifies for an ADU. These families will be deprived of the right to build their ADUs if the statute is allowed to “sunset” at the end of this year.
I fully understand and fully support those who are concerned about how we are going to deal with increased density on the island. This just seems like a strange way to address the issue when we have a shortage of residential housing already. Change the statute for future purchases of open and ag-zoned land if you must, but don’t retroactively revise the rules for those who own open or ag-zoned land and have always planned to build an ADU on their property. Approving permits to build thousands of vacation rental condos and second homes while denying families the right to build ADUs on open and ag-zoned land seems to be focusing on the wrong cause of the density problem.
With building costs at an all-time high and contractor schedules already booked months in advance, this seems like a terrible time to push people into rushing ahead with hastily drawn plans just to get them in under the wire so they can start construction before the ADU statute for open and ag-zoned land “sunsets” at the end of the year. Please give serious thought to extending the statute for at least five more years (or indefinitely) so that owners of these properties can proceed with carefully considered plans rather than haphazard ones. I believe the people of Kaua‘i will be better off as a result. Mahalo.
