Butler workers hold informational picket asking hospital to address mental health crisis

UNIONIZED CAREGIVERS at Butler Hospital gathered for an informational picket on Nov. 10 to ask the hospital management to invest funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to address the state’s mental health emergency.

PROVIDENCE – Unionized caregivers at Butler Hospital gathered for an informational picket on Nov. 10 to ask the hospital management to address the state’s “ongoing mental health care emergency.”

Amid an ongoing mental health crisis, front-line staff who are members of Service Employees International Union 1199 New England are asking management to invest the funds from the American Rescue Plan Act set aside for Rhode Island hospitals, which include $8 million for the expansion of mental health services and more than $1 million to stabilize the workforce at Butler Hospital.

“We worked really hard to make sure Butler got funding in the state budget to address the staffing crisis. Instead of working with us to come up with long-term solutions, management throws money away on Band-Aids that don’t address the root causes of our staffing shortages,” said Amy Smith, registered nurse at Butler Hospital, which is part of Care New England Health System. “We want the same dignity and respect from management that we’re expected to give to our patients. We want them to sit down and talk to us about long-term, sustainable solutions for what’s happening at our hospital.”

Among the concerns of workers are short staffing, chronic underfunding and a pandemic-related spike in demand, which threw Butler in a “severe capacity crisis.” Workers are demanding Care New England finally invests the ARPA funds into measures to address the capacity crisis, including increasing wages and offering free or reduced training and career development for employees.

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“Working with the barest minimum of staff can put our patients and colleagues at risk,” said Ashley Ouellette, a staff float pool nurse at Butler. “We are working with vulnerable people who can hurt themselves or other patients if we don’t have the staff we need to properly supervise our units. Instead of using sign-on bonuses to attract staff that don’t have specialized experience, management needs to improve the safety and working conditions to retain the qualified staff that have dedicated their lives to this work.”

The picket comes only a week after another informational picket was held by SEIU 1199NE front-line caregivers at Women & Infants Hospital, another Care New England facility, where workers also demanded the hospital’s administration invest ARPA funds to address short staffing.

Butler Hospital, which provides a variety of both inpatient and outpatient mental, behavioral and substance services, employs approximately 900 employees, 650 of whom are represented by SEIU 1199NE.

Claudia Chiappa is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Chiappa@PBN.com.

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