Healthcare workers rallied outside Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London on Monday, demanding higher compensation to help alleviate issues with staff recruitment and retention that they say are compromising patient care. “Let’s be clear: in a hospital, working conditions are patient car e conditions,” said Stuart Savelkoul, chief of staff for AFT CT, a union of healthcare and education workers. “When skilled professionals are assigned more patients than anyone can safely care for, the entire community is at risk.” Hospital employees and union leaders who spoke to a crowd of roughly 100 attendees described unsafe staffing conditions, inadequate wages and worker burnout — all of which directly impacts the quality of care at the hospital, they said. Katelynne Pluss, an emergency room nurse and vice president of the hospital’s nurses union, said that in the last few years resignations have plagued several departments, including nurses, techs and cleaning staff.  Management has been slow to replace those workers, so if someone is out sick or on vacation, staffing can get tight, Pluss said. “They’ve been cutting back, cutting back. They’re not replacing the people who are leaving,” said Pluss, who works at the Pequot Health Center, a satellite location of Lawrence + Memorial. Lawrence + Memorial, which is owned by Yale New Haven Health, is currently in contract negotiations with three separate unions that together represent over 2,100 of the hospital’s employees, including nurses, techs, paramedics and other healthcare workers, like patient care assistants and warehouse workers. On Monday afternoon, Fiona Phelan, a spokesperson with Yale New Haven Health, said management was aware of the gathering and that the hospital “deeply values” the workforce, whose “skill and compassion are integral to our vision of providing access to high value, patient-centered care.” “Our leadership team continues to negotiate in good faith, and we are confident that we will reach an agreement that is fair, responsible and competitive within the broader healthcare marketplace,” Phelan said. Healthcare staffing shortages came to light during the pandemic, but continue to pose a challenge years later. For example, Connecticut needs roughly 3,000 new registered nurses a year to make up for retirements — without factoring in nurses who leave the profession for other reasons, like burn out, according to a Governor’s Workforce Council Strategic Plan published in 2020. At the time, the state’s nursing programs were only producing 1,900 graduates a year.  Demonstrators on Monday were joined by a handful of state legislators, as well as Attorney General William Tong. Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, who has worked for 40 years as a nurse, blamed hospital management and lobbyists for the challenging conditions healthcare workers face. “There is no reason why we should not have safe staffing,” Marx told the crowd. “Don’t let them win.” Pluss and several other speakers also discussed downgrades to certain hospital supplies, like tape and IVs. Pluss said the supply changes seemed like an attempt to cut costs. In recent years, legislators have taken steps to improve staffing conditions in hospitals with mixed success. In 2023, Connecticut passed a measure banning mandated overtime for registered nurses. The law prohibits a hospital from forcing a nurse to work 48 hours in a work week or 12 hours in a 24 hour period. But that same year, a bill to create mandatory nurse staffing ratios in Connecticut hospitals failed.   John Brady, vice president of AFT CT, said he would like to see the mandated overtime ban expanded to other healthcare professionals as a recruitment tool, but also a safety tool for both staff and patients. ...read more read less