The situation at Children's Minnesota is already dire. The hospital is already at capacity, and sometimes beyond capacity it, with COVID, influenza and now a surge in RSV.
A strike by the Minnesota Nurses Association could be catastrophic, says Children's President and CEO Dr. Marc Gorelick.
“If this work stoppage materializes, it's going to put kids in danger,” says Gorelick. “And that's why we're putting out the alarm.”
Gorelick says they've already started to identify temporary nurses, and are preparing to move some children in the ICU to hospitals in other states. But that could be challenging.
“Pediatric critical care capacity in this country is very, very tight across the nation,” says Gorelick.
Ultimately says they want to avoid the strike and reach a deal before the nurses would go on strike December 11.
15,000 nurses in the Twin Cities, Twin Ports, and Two Harbors voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to authorize a second unfair labor practices strike. The 20-day strike would affect all of the major hospital systems across the Twin Cities leaving them without staffing until the end of the year.
The vote came three months after nurses first voted to authorize a strike, which led to a three-day strike in September that took 15,000 nurses out of hospitals and onto picket lines.
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