Northwestern Memorial Hospital workers demand better staffing

A hospital staff union is calling on Northwestern Memorial Hospital to beef up its emergency department workforce, ahead of next week’s planned vote by the state board on whether the hospital should be allowed to embark on a $96 million expansion project.

On Jan. 13, the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board will review the hospital’s application to add 42 intensive care unit beds and a two-story connector between two pavilions, among other things. The board must vote in favor of the hospital’s request before the project can move forward.

The project aims in part to alleviate overloads in the hospital’s emergency department due to a lack of intensive care unit beds, according to the hospital’s application for the project. These safeguards have led to “excessive” emergency room wait times and many patients leaving without being seen, according to the hospital’s request.

Before the state board meeting, SEIU Healthcare Illinois workers held a news conference Tuesday near the hospital, demanding that the hospital first focus on the safety of emergency department staff. The union is actively negotiating with Northwestern over its contract, which expires at the end of January.

The union represents about 1,700 workers at Northwestern Memorial, including dietitians, housekeepers and patient care technicians.

“We appreciate our SEIU-represented employees and the important contributions they make every day,” Northwestern said in a statement Tuesday. “We remain committed to negotiating in good faith.”

Union members say more workers are needed in emergency departments and throughout the hospital. The union is seeking higher wages, salary incentives and hiring more staff, said Anne Igoe, vice president of hospitals and health systems for SEIU Healthcare Illinois.

Sometimes the emergency department is overcrowded in part because there aren’t enough staff to clean rooms or transport patients from the emergency department to hospital beds, said Morgan Jurgus, an emergency department assistant at the hospital.

Some days there may be only six emergency room attendants, Jurgus said. Emergency room attendants help perform tasks such as CPR, splints and cleaning patients, Jurgus said.

“There are patients who end up waiting six to eight hours in our waiting room, waiting for care, and that causes additional stress for everyone involved,” Jurgus said.

“They clearly have money that they’re willing to invest in solving the problem,” Jurgus said of Northwestern. “It feels like they’re not willing to invest in us, the workers, the people who actually do the work.”

April McNeal, a unit secretary at the hospital, said workers feel like they’re doing the work of two or three people.

“We’re exhausted, stressed and we feel like we’re letting down our patients, people who really need us,” McNeal said at the news conference.

Northwestern, however, says wait times in its emergency departments are in line with other similar hospitals.

The average time spent in Northwestern Memorial’s emergency department, from the time a patient arrives to the end of their visit, is about five and a half hours, compared to about four hours at hospitals statewide, according to federal data. However, five and a half hours is the average across the country for hospitals like Northwestern — large, urban Level I adult trauma centers — Northwestern spokesman Chris King said.

King also said that over the past few years, the hospital has doubled the number of housekeepers per shift in its emergency department and also increased the number of its emergency room transporters by 2 percent.

Northwestern Memorial also recently won approval from the state board to spend $56 million on design services for a potential new tower on its Streeterville campus. This tower is expected to have more than 200 beds to meet demand, according to the hospital’s application for the project.

The tower could open by 2031, if approved by the state board. The project submitted to the state board on Jan. 13 to add 42 intensive care unit beds “will be a critical bridge to address high ICU occupancy before a new tower can be opened,” according to Northwestern’s application for the project.