Some Traveling Staff Brought in by St. Joe’s Last Week Have Already Quit as COVID-19 Pandemic Exacerbates Employee Shortages

As St. Joseph’s Hospital copes with a surge in the pandemic, COVID-19 customized hospital rooms, with their plywood and circular ducting ventilation in the windows can be seen from the sidewalk. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

 Frontline caregivers in the County have expressed their frustration and vocalized their specific needs since well before the COVID-19  pandemic, in the form of informational pickets at the entrance of Saint Joseph Hospital in Eureka, press conferences with local media, Union strikes, and even town halls structured to involve the public – all in an effort to address shortages in staffing, which nurses say translates into a deficit in patient care across the board. 

Confirmed by a handful of hospital staff who were dependent in one way or another on these traveling reinforcements, we are told that most of the ICU nurses, and possibly one or both of the desperately needed Respiratory Therapists brought in by California’s Medical Health Operational Area Coordination (MHOAC) to St. Joe’s who arrived this last week may have quit, despite only having just begun.  Feedback from nurses and ancillary staff alike reflects frustration in what is seen as a lack of organization and a lack of motivation to address ongoing problems increasingly resulting in a lack of confidence in hospital leadership. 

One staff member willing to be quoted was James Ladika, who is an RN in the Progressive Care Unit at St. Joseph Hospital, and is a member of the Professional Practice Committee at St. Joe’s.  Ladika provides a bedside caregiver’s perspective with a long view of the local staffing shortage, and regularly works with high-acuity patients, including COVID-19 hospitalized community members.  He told us, “Travelers are an indispensable resource in Humboldt in non-pandemic times…[D]uring the SARS-COV-2 pandemic they are an absolutely essential part of our hospital staff. Of course every hospital needs a Chief Financial Officer, but Providence’s model seems to be for everyone in the organization from managers up to the CEO to first act as a CFO and only after all financial considerations are taken into account, can you then do what is best for your staff.” 

RN James Ladika seen here addressing a crowd at a National Union Of Healthcare Workers picket outside the Hospital in January of 2019.   [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

The local staffing shortage is exacerbated by the struggle to retain traveling staff. This is not a new problem for local caregivers and hospital administrators, but has become an even greater challenge during the pandemic.  In August, the CEO of Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, Dr. Roberta Luskin-Hawk, made the rounds of the hospital greeting staff and touching base and getting feedback from staff members. In a situation described to our reporter, as she surveyed the hospital functions in the midst of the summer surge, upon asking staff for feedback, Luskin-Hawk was informed by a hospital staff member of a scenario in which a traveling nurse assigned to the unit decided to quit “within an hour” of being on duty.  Staff nearby at the time described the CEO as being shocked, and told us that Luskin-Hawk responded by saying that the administration would ‘see what to do about this’, before proceeding on.  

Reportedly, the traveling RN told employees before leaving, that the hospital was understaffed, and that the nurses were “crazy to work under these conditions” before citing staffing minimums required by Title 22 in California.  This example of an unhappy traveling nurse reportedly took place prior to the additional staff arriving with assistance from the Medical Health Operational Area Coordinator (MHOAC) last week. 

Last month in regard to staffing shortages, a frontline St. Joseph Hospital staff member told us, “We have been having an extremely hard time retaining any traveling positions – those travelers that came on, are leaving in the middle of their contract.” 

Despite having known about the abrupt departure of traveling nurses earlier in the summer, when reached for comment by the Times-Standard this weekend as to the recent event of several of the MHOAC Program RNs hired having bailed out unexpectedly early, Dr. Luskin-Hawk characterized last week’s traveling nurses’ departure as “an unfortunate and unique circumstance. (Underline added by us for emphasis)” 

With the abundant opportunities for traveling medical staff in California and beyond, these nurses have plenty of competitive options to choose from, and can easily go where the grass is greener.  

The CEO of St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, Roberta Luskan-Hawk, explained in August that housing was difficult to come by and therefore created a dilemma in being able to bring in additional staff. While housing is problematic in Humboldt County, Providence has been able to secure several contracts for traveling medical professionals including nurses, hospitalists and doctors, and technicians who have arrived, and then decided not to stay.  Having already relocated here, housing was not the issue primarily noted for them abruptly leaving and breaking their contract for temporary employment.  We have reached out to the local MHOAC contact person for details, but over the Labor Day weekend, at the time of publishing, had not heard back. 

While the Redheaded Blackbelt did not receive a reply from Providence St. Joseph Hospital by the time of publishing, the CEO did provide some feedback to the Times-Standard in response to the news that traveling nurses were abandoning post during such a critical moment in local healthcare. Luskin-Hawk said, “Some of the travelers who came to us through our request to the Medical Health Operational Area Coordinator did not stay at our hospitals.”  Luskin-Hawk asserted, “The primary reason was that they were not familiar with our electronic medical record system — a system that is used by many hospitals. Additionally, there were issues with the onboarding of these caregivers which created a challenge for them acclimating to our hospital.”  

Local caregivers working at St. Joseph tell us that there is a problematic lack of organization when it comes to “onboarding” these traveling nurses, which would generally include some training, orientation to the work environment, verification of licensing in order to access and use certain supplies and medications in the course of their job duties, and sometimes more.  Additionally, these incoming ICU nurses, because they weren’t provided with adequate access upon beginning their assignments, were not able to view important information, such as chart care. These things were not done for incoming new staff to St. Joes, effectively putting traveling professionals at a disadvantage. 

Some of the nurses who opted to leave were designated to work with ICU patients, while the two Respiratory Therapists (RT) are specifically trained and educated to address all manner of breathing problems and related trauma.  These RTs are hard to come by and are needed to administer complicated breathing treatments, including use of a ventilator and other air flow mechanisms that are frequently relied on by COVID-19 patients in the ICU. On a regular day, the hospital has at most three RT available to cover the entire hospital, and they report being regularly spread too thin. 

At a National United Healthcare Workers Union protest in November of 2019 at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, a family is seen holding signs reading “STAFFING NOT PROFITS,”  and “$43 MILLION IN PROFITS NOT ENOUGH?” [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

Expressing frustration that their concerns regarding staffing ratios and organization were not being fairly considered by management, one veteran staff member told us, “I think the truth needs to be spoken, because this is just outrageous and I can’t handle what’s going on around here any more.”   

The staff member continued, “They get to go home at 5 o’clock, administration does, and have dinner with their families – and they have the nerve to tell us ‘you have to work outside of patient ratios, and you’re just gonna have to deal with it’.” 

Providence St. Joseph Hospital staff members in Eureka say they struggle to have their concerns addressed by administration, while the hospital struggles in turn to secure staffing reinforcements during a relentless flow of emergency cases – a troubling circumstance that has further complicated Humboldt’s local response to the pandemic in the second summer of COVID-19. 

Data from the County shows the rate of hospitalization compared to deaths for both vaccinated and unvaccinated community members, providing a visual aid depicting the difference in severe illness between the two groups.  Updated September 2, 2021.