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State AG DePasquale: Pittston continues to miss police pension payments

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No tax hike in Butler Twp.; supervisors challenge unemployment bid by ex-manager Petrilla

A few months ago, the father of one member of our editorial board was in critical care at a local hospital.The situation was not dire, but the patient definitely needed around-the-clock monitoring.Besides concern for his father, our staffer&#8217;s most distinct memory of the experience was the Herculean tasks that had to be handled by the nurses on that particular floor.Their work ethic was easy to see as they hustled from room to room, tending to every possible need you could think of &#8212; right down to assisting patients as they used the bathroom.That brings us to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital and the protracted fight there between the unionized nursing staff and management.First, we must point out that nurses are the backbone of any hospital and bear the lion&#8217;s share of responsibilities when it comes to patient care.After all, it&#8217;s not the doctor who shows up when you hit the help button in your room.It&#8217;s the nurse.They do it all, and do it so well in most instances, a lot of their good work is taken for granted.So, based on our own observations of hospitals in general and a recent state report on Wilkes-Barre General specifically, we have no doubt the nurses&#8217; concerns about understaffing are legitimate.We also believe them when they say they are taking up this fight not for their own selves but for the safety and well-being of their patients.But we must say we didn&#8217;t particularly like the spectacle the union made near the hospital Tuesday to get its point across.And even though it is their right and we wouldn&#8217;t dare take it from them, we don&#8217;t like that nurses are dangling the threat of a strike again. (They went on strike one day in May, then the hospital locked them out for a few more.)Tuesday&#8217;s press conference seemed like just another way to publicly shame the hospital and its for-profit owner, Community Health Systems.That doesn&#8217;t seem like the best way to enter today&#8217;s crucial negotiation session.As a statement from the hospital noted: &#8220;Rather than taking nurses away from their patients, we encourage PASNAP (the nurses union) to take constructive action to reach an agreement at the bargaining table.&#8221;Very good point.But please do not take any of this as an endorsement of CHS.If it&#8217;s true what the nurses say &#8212; the hospital made a total profit of $11 million between 2015 and 2017 &#8212; there is absolutely no way so many shifts should be understaffed with nurses as the recent state report found.So, to sum up, we find valid arguments and fault with both sides here.That&#8217;s why we wish to remain neutral in this fight.But we urge the nurses and hospital management to do one thing: Find common ground and end this battle.Quite frankly, it&#8217;s starting to look bad for both sides.And the public is growing weary.We know nurses are upset and maybe they have a darn good reason to feel that way.But when emotions are fueling actions, it invariably leads to poor results, especially during a bargaining process.Let&#8217;s put personal feelings aside for a moment &#8212; this goes for management as well &#8212; and get something done.The longer this goes on, the worse it gets for everybody. &#8212; Times Leader<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Registered nurse Elaine Weale, president of the Wyoming Valley Nurses Association, speaks about understaffing at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital during a press conference Tuesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/web1_TTL121218Nurses2.cmyk-1-1-1.jpeg</photo0><caption0>Registered nurse Elaine Weale, president of the Wyoming Valley Nurses Association, speaks about understaffing at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital during a press conference Tuesday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>

Our View: Time for nurses, hospital to end this fight