By Myra Taylor
Everyone in Pennsylvania relies on and trusts our hospitals to keep us safe when we’re sick, but as we head into the third year of the pandemic, healthcare workers are burnt out and staffing has been depleted to catastrophically low levels.
Hospitals’ short staffing and disregard for dedicated employees is driving workers from the bedside. Now more than ever, our hospitals and elected officials need to take this staffing crisis seriously and invest in retaining the healthcare workers we have.
On January 12th , I joined my colleagues from UPMC and Allegheny Health Network (AHN) for a candlelight vigil on the Rachel Carson Bridge  to demand solutions to the staffing crisis from hospital leaders and elected officials.
Speaking at the vigil was my Allegheny General Hospital coworker Erin Williams, who made it clear that staffing in healthcare has reached a boiling point. Erin told the crowd of supporters how some departments at AGH are working with roughly half the recommended number of staff in their units. She went on to say: “Staffing problems didn’t begin with the COVID-19 pandemic, but the global health crisis has shined a bright spotlight on the staffing crisis and hospitals’ failure to provide viable solutions to this problem.”
Every day, bedside workers are going to work knowing they’ll have more patients than they should reasonably be able to care for and surrounded by temporary staff paid almost twice as much. This short staffing and lack of support for dedicated employees is driving us away from the bedside and it’s putting nurses and patients at risk.
Jodi Faltin, another featured speaker at the vigil, is a registered nurse at UPMC Shadyside and talked about what the staffing crisis looks like at her hospital: “I have seen countless nurses come and go, oftentimes leaving for travel nursing or other professions altogether. The opportunity to increase their pay and control their assignments is too good for many to turn down. The staffing crisis is forcing nurses that never wanted to leave Pittsburgh to take their talents elsewhere for a better life.”
The staffing crisis has devastated healthcare systems across the country, but profitable local systems such as UPMC are uniquely positioned to make significant changes. The largest private employer in Pennsylvania had a record financial year, bringing in over $1 billion dollars in profit in 2021.
“UPMC has the resources and influence to lead the way in staff investments but has chosen inaction as its position,” Jodi went on to say. “Financially, it is not a question of whether UPMC can put the first foot forward in solving the staffing crisis, but when administration will make it a priority to do so.”
Joined by members of our community and elected leaders, including state senator Lindsey Williams, we made it clear that one-time bonuses and temporary agency workers are only band-aid solutions to much deeper problems with staffing.
We know the state has unspent stimulus money that could be directed to keeping healthcare workers right here where they’re needed. At the vigil, we called on the Pennsylvania General Assembly to dedicate some of the billions of American Rescue Plan Act funds sitting in state coffers to retention bonuses and other efforts to keep healthcare workers at the bedside.
“The staffing crisis we are seeing cannot become the new normal standard for healthcare systems,” said Jacob Anderson, a registered nurse at AGH. “Healthcare systems and our elected officials owe it to the communities we serve to solve this problem. My colleagues and I are calling for long-term investments in frontline workers from those in charge of our hospitals.”
We lit our candles to remember the healthcare workers that have left our city or the healthcare field altogether due to the staffing crisis and unsustainable working conditions. With the support of our community, healthcare workers from Pittsburgh sent a message to the city, our health system leaders, and our elected officials that it is time to step up and keep our heroes here!Â