The registered nurses of Berkshire Medical Center are among the 26,000 health care professionals represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association across the commonwealth. On Monday, the roughly 600 nurses employed by the facility’s owner and operator Berkshire Health Systems voted to accept a new contract.
“It increases the amount of pay that each nurse will receive, which helps attract and retain nurses in this area. We also have better working conditions. We have what we call grids, the maximum number of patients per nurse on each floor, and we are hoping that the workload that we have ratified helps maintain the high-quality care that each patient in this county deserves," said registered nurse Sarah Roberts, a grievance steward for the unionized BMC workers who works in the hospital’s operating room. “I can only truly hope that this contract helps attract and retain new nurses to stay in our workforce. This community desperately needs our hospital to have experienced nurses, and we somehow are the only hospital system in Western Mass as far as the Berkshires go. We really, really, really need the help.”
Roberts said she’s especially pleased with the agreement’s emphasis on supporting staff at the facility’s Maternal Child Health Program.
“These nurses are no longer being required to work in other locations, which means that the staff is highly competent, highly trained, and present for any sort of obstetric emergencies that could happen in this area," she told WAMC.
Including BMC, BHS runs the other major health care facilities in Berkshire County – North Adams Regional Hospital in the northern segment of the largely rural region and Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington to the south.
Roberts described the negotiations as some of the most collaborative and healthy in her 10 years as a registered nurse and union member.
“I feel very, very good about the relationship that we have formed," she said. "I feel like we are in a very different place than we were back in 2016 when we were fighting for better working conditions and better care to give to our patients. So, I feel like we all are working towards the same goal. We may have different ways of achieving that, but that is what the negotiating process is all about.”
In a statement, BHS said it was pleased the nurses had accepted the new 2.5-year contract. Citing the union’s open communication with management throughout the process, the company said it hopes the terms will allow BHS to “continue supporting and growing our talented nursing team.”
The contract comes as the nursing profession continues to recover from the massive disruption of the 2020 pandemic outbreak, which Roberts said was illuminating.
“It made it very obvious where the holes were in healthcare in general throughout the country, and it truly took a toll on everybody, physically, emotionally," said the registered nurse. "It was very, very, very difficult to be a nurse during COVID and post-COVID. Quite frankly, we are attracting new nurses to the workforce, and in order to get them up and trained, we are orienting a lot of new, fresh faces that will, hopefully, carry on the legacy that the older nurses have left us.”
Along with wage increases and expanded benefits, the contract includes measures to protect nurses from the use of artificial intelligence by BHS and safeguards for nurses at North Adams Regional “amid system changes and new unit openings.”
