Visiting nurses on Cape Cod say they’ll go on strike for three days, starting on Wednesday, after months of failed contract negotiations with Cape Cod Healthcare.
The registered nurses who work for the Visiting Nurse Association of Cape Cod, which is part of Cape Cod Healthcare, say they don’t expect to be paid the higher wage hospital nurses receive. But they’re looking for the same percentage raise that registered nurses at Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital got in August — 19 percent over three years.
Visiting nurses say they’ve been offered much less — 10 percent — and were not afforded the cost-of-living increase hospital nurses got last year without bargaining.
“We are not expecting the hospital wages. They've always been very different,” said Pamela Anderson, a visiting nurse case manager on the Cape. “We just want to have the same pay increase. … We all have the same cost of living.”
Cape Cod Healthcare would not confirm the 10 percent wage offer. The company said its offer is “significantly higher” than competitors, but provided no numbers to back up the claim. It also said the benefits offered to visiting nurses exceed industry standards.
“This offer was made in the face of challenging financial realities,” Cape Cod Healthcare said in a written statement. “Reimbursements for home health and hospice agencies have been significantly reduced, and the VNA has experienced operating losses for several consecutive years. Despite these pressures, we have prioritized investing in our nurses and the care they provide.”
But the visiting nurses say Cape Cod’s high cost of living is a problem — one that Cape Cod Healthcare has chosen to ease for hospital nurses, but not for them.
Visiting nurses on Cape Cod already earned about 20 percent less than hospital nurses before the hospital nurses’ new contract, according to the union.
Cape Cod Healthcare refused to respond to a question about the widening disparity in pay between the two groups.
The two sides have traded barbs about staffing.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association said in a press release that the Cape VNA experiences “chronic turnover” and that nearly one-third of its nurses are temporary travel nurses, a “costly, unstable practice” that “disrupts continuity of care.”
But Cape Cod Healthcare pushed back, saying in a statement that the MNA “continues to promote a misleading narrative around wages and turnover.” The company said registered nurse turnover among Cape Cod visiting nurses is under 7 percent, compared to a regional average of 27 percent across New England.
And the company said using traveling nurses is a necessary measure to cover open positions and leaves of absence.
Anderson, who co-chairs the visiting nurses’ bargaining unit, said visiting nurses and hospital nurses do different kinds of work, each with its own challenges. Visiting nurses do home care and hospice.
She said visiting patients’ homes can put nurses in challenging and unsafe environments, without the benefit of security staff or immediate support from colleagues. And they have to maintain infection control under all kinds of living conditions, clean or not.
“You're providing wound care and chest tube dressing changes, PleurX drains,” she said. “You're doing these all, in many different environments.”
The strike is scheduled to start at 8 a.m. Wednesday and last through 7:59 a.m. Saturday.
The visiting nurses plan to picket at several locations on Cape Cod from Wednesday through Friday, from about 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Picket locations have not been announced.
