Nurses at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis say they’ve been working without a contract for nearly six months.
Members of the Oregon Nurses Association, which represents about 500 nurses at Good Samaritan, spent Friday afternoon singing carols in downtown Corvallis as a way to raise public awareness about the situation.
Jacqueline Dillon is a registered nurse at Corvallis Good Samaritan and head of their bargaining team. She said chronic staffing shortages at the hospital means many nurses are on call much longer than they should be each month. “Call is supposed to be for the unexpected things like, there’s been a car accident and somebody needs surgery now, call in the surgery teams," she said. :But instead, it’s being used (when) we don’t have enough nurses to run the operating room today, so bring in the call team.”
Dillon said negotiations will resume next month. Good Samaritan did not respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon. However, a spokesman told KLCC earlier this month that administrators are “confident they can reach an agreement that will benefit everyone, specifically staff and patients.”
