Nurses at Three Rivers Health Hospital, owned by Beacon Health System, ratified a contract Tuesday after months of negotiations.
The local branch of the Michigan Nurses Association said 98 percent of members who voted approved the contract, which will increase nurse’s pay and limit forced overtime.
Local union president and ER nurse Brandy Shoup said benefits provided in the new contract should help reduce staff turnover.
“I really think with this contract, it's going to make those nurses that were maybe thinking about leaving second guess thinking, 'All right, this is maybe a little bit better. I can I can stay around for this.'"
She added that the raises will put the Three Rivers facility close to the top of region in terms of pay, which she hopes will lure in new nurses.
“We know we're short staffed. We know we need to get more nurses here and stay here. And we've done the research. This is what we need. And Beacon was able to come around and see some of that and that is what we got.”
And Shoup said nurses won’t be the only ones to benefit from the contract.
“If we have more nurses, wait times are going to go down. You're not going to have nurses who are burned out after working so many hours. You got fresh faces. I think the care in general is just going to increase.”
Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program.
