BALTIMORE (RNS) — The nurses had hoped this would be the year the U.S. Catholic bishops would listen to their concerns about hospital understaffing that they say lowers standards of care and makes doing their jobs a physical trial.
Instead, the nurses and their supporters gathered outside the harbor-front hotel where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was holding its annual fall meeting. Braced against a whipping wind off the water, they recounted about staffing issues and union busting at Catholic hospitals.
“ Inside our hospitals, we see indignity every day,” said Monica Gonzalez, a registered nurse at Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas. “We see nurses running from room to room, taking on unsafe assignments, skipping breaks, holding our bladders and holding our tears.”
The deprivations, she said, were because Ascension, a Catholic hospital network of 95 medical centers and 30 senior living facilities, “ is putting profits over people.”
When asked for a response, Ascension sent a reply from its nearest affiliated hospital, Ascension St. Agnes in Baltimore. A spokesperson there told Religion News Service, “Our staffing and patient care practices are grounded in evidence-based approaches and flexible staffing models designed to meet the evolving needs of our patients.”
Inside the hotel, the bishops were focused on health care, but not o …