Nurses at Worcester's Saint Vincent Hospital have filed a series of complaints claiming that patients at the facility are suffering because of staffing levels, hospital policies and more.
They are asking oversight boards to step in to alleviate conditions that leave patients "unattended and unmonitored," said registered nurse Marlena Pellegrino, who helps lead the local bargaining unit, at a news conference Wednesday.
The complaints were filed with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services and health care accreditor The Joint Commission, according to the nurses' union, the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
"We are sickened to report, but find ourselves duty-bound to do so, that the conditions documented in these complaints raise serious concerns about the safety of patient care at our hospital," Pellegrino said.
Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters.
NBC10 Boston is reaching out to Tenet Healthcare, which owns Saint Vincent, for comment on the claims.
They come two years after a lengthy nursing strike ended. It was called over what nurses said were dangerous conditions and low nurse-to-patient ratios amid the coronavirus pandemic. The hospital hired scores of replacement nurses during the work stoppage.
Then-U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, who'd previsouly been mayor of Boston, helped broker the breakthrough in negotiations.
But Pellegrino said Wednesday that the conditions nurses are seeing at Saint Vincent are due in part to an "unrelenting campaign" from CEO Carolyn Jackson to undo the agreement that was reached in late 2021.
