Providence operates eight hospitals in Oregon, including Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Southwest Portland. (Photo courtesy of Providence Health & Services)
Hospitalists at Providence St. Vincent in Portland reached a tentative agreement with the hospital’s management amid a strike of nearly 5,000 nurses and other health care workers statewide at Providence hospitals and clinics.
The tentative agreement is the last one in the biggest health care strike in Oregon history, which started Jan 10 and rippled through health care facilities from southern Oregon to the Portland region and affected thousands of patients.
It follows tentative agreements earlier this week with physicians and nurses in Providence’s six women’s clinics in the Portland area and separate agreements with nurses in the company’s eight hospitals in the state.
Union members, who started voting on Thursday, still need to approve the agreements for the strike to end.
The St. Vincent agreement marks a first for the staff physicians and nurse practitioners in the union. The hospitalists at St. Vincent unionized through the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association in August 2023. The group represents more than 70 workers at the hospital, including internal medicine physicians, pediatricians, obstetricians/gynecologists, palliative care physicians and specialized nurse practitioners.
The hospitalists started to vote on the proposal Thursday and will continue until 4 p.m. Friday. If members approve it, they will return to work.
“It has been a long and arduous process, and it has been hard won,” said Dr. Jahnavi Chandrashekar, an internal medicine practitioner at the hospital and member of the bargaining team. “But we’re thrilled to be at this point now where we can finally get back in the building, go to work and do what we are here to do in the first place.”
Chandrashekar said increased staffing was a key part of the tentative agreement. For patients, that translates into improvements in their care, she said.
“With more appropriate staffing, you’re going to see a direct effect on patients with being able to be seen in a timely manner,” she said in an interview.
Prior to unionization, physician efforts to increase staffing for safety went nowhere, Chandrashekar said.
“Over the past several years, we’ve been noticing longer wait times, higher patient loads and less ability of our physicians to spend the time with patients that they need,” she said.
Other provisions in the proposal include across the board pay raises, with guaranteed cost-of-living increases and increased sick time to be comparable with other Providence hospitals.
In a statement, Providence said it “extends its gratitude to all our dedicated team members for their unwavering support and hard work during this period, which has enabled us to provide care for our communities.”
The proposed deal, announced late Wednesday, followed pressure by Oregon congressional leaders and Gov. Tina Kotek on Providence to reach an agreement and caps a week of bargaining between the Oregon Nurses Association and Providence Health & Services.
On Monday, both sides announced they had reached agreements for nurses and physicians at six women’s clinics in the Portland area.
And on Wednesday, the union and nonprofit health care provider reached tentative agreements with the nurses union representing eight hospitals: Portland’s St. Vincent, Providence Portland Medical Center and hospitals in Hood River, Medford, Milwaukie, Newberg, Seaside and Oregon City. Voting by nurses will end Friday at most of the hospitals, except for Medford, where voting lasts until Saturday.
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