Boston ICU nurse on strike has family member being treated in her unit: "Very stressful, very high anxiety"
Among the thousands of nurses who walked out of Brigham and Women's Hospital in one of the largest nurses strikes in Massachusetts history Wednesday, is an ICU nurse whose close family member is a patient inside.
"I carpooled with a couple girls this morning. We all cried on our way in. We don't want to be out here. It's not good for the patients, it's not good for business, it's just not," Jillian Burns told WBZ Wednesday.
Burns, a registered nurse with a decade of experience, says her loved one has been receiving critical care for an illness in her unit for the past three-and-a-half weeks, adding another layer of stress to the ongoing strike.
"He's actually on the ICU that I work on, so my like very best friends have been taking care of him for three and a half weeks now, and now we're all out here, which is very stressful, very high anxiety," she said.
Burns said the situation mirrors the concerns many families of hospitalized patients are feeling during the strike.
"We're one-to-one with our patients, meaning we spend 12 hours with that one person. We get to know their family, their families trust us. My family member, you know, they're very upset that their nurses that they have come to love in the last three weeks are not up there with them," Burns explained.
In a statement, Mass General Brigham said the temporary nurses brought in to cover shifts have "arrived without issue and are fully integrated in care teams including in the ICUs and NICU."
Burns, however, said experienced bedside nurses provide a level of familiarity that cannot be easily replaced. She worries her loved one is not getting the same level of care.
"Especially in the ICU, like nurses that know the patients, they pick up on everything super-fast, they might not be a vital sign change or a lab change, but they know their patients and they recognize change and they act on it. And I think that's one of the biggest things that MGB is taking away from the bedside right now," she said.
Despite having a family member in the hospital, Burns believes remaining on the picket line is important as her and her colleagues' fight for better wages.
"I just went in briefly to kind of check in [on him], see how his process is going today, how he's doing. But I am a strong union supporter, and I believe in what we're fighting for, and it's just as important for me to be out here," Burns said.
Burns says her family member is making slow but steady progress and she's hoping he continues to recover without any major setbacks as she and her colleagues remain on strike.
