by Robert Wright
Doctors and Nurses at the Ascension St. John location in Detroit walked off the job Thursday afternoon as tensions mounted over the past weeks regarding safe staffing and poor conditions in the Emergency department. The Union representing them, the Greater Detroit Association of Emergency Physicians, voted for a 24- hour strike in a breakdown of their negotiations with their employer TeamHealth- a subsidiary of Ascension which staffs the hospital.
The union, which represents 43 doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners employed by TeamHealth filed an intent to organize with the National Labor Relation Board in May. These strikers have been working without a contract with TeamHealth since the company took over staffing in 2015.
Dawned in their white coats and scrubs the healthcare workers walked out, picked up their signs, and began their picket on the street outside the hospital. The workers raised calls against TeamHealth for understaffing leading to excessive wait times of up to 17 hours for ER patients. One major concern being a lack of properly trained workers in the ER leading to creating a dangerous situation for their patients, with ER staff, named Save Our Emergency Room creating a website to warn the public of the conditions in the ER.
“We’ve had enough. How many more patient lives do we have to put at risk by being short-staffed, by having 16-17 hour wait times, by letting these patients sit out there scared? How much longer are we going to take this?” said Casey Kolp, a striker.
Dr. John Bahling, pediatric emergency doctor, remarked that since TeamHealth took over their wait times and staffing has worsened. In a Podcast, Dr. Bahling states, “Everybody is absolutely burned right out, it started before Covid, but Covid exasperated it. Ascension St. John happens to have the worst of it, we have a high need, highly vulnerable population that we love taking care of but your physicians and nurse practitioners are recognizing that your patient care is suffering due to a private equity firm. A large corporation is prioritizing profits over patient care … Unfortunately, we have been going through 11 or 12 rounds of negotiations and we’re still arguing about whether or not to put billboards in patient bathrooms. We are nowhere near any sort of meaningful change in our contract or patient safety and staffing levels and resource levels.”
In a statement released by TeamHealth regarding the strike, the employer refuted the claims made by the union. Speaking contrary to their staff, they say, “The median door to door to doctor time at Ascension St. John Emergency Department in 2023 was 25 minutes. In 2024, wait times dropped to 15 minutes, far less than the 10 to 15 hours the union claims.”
To date, this is the third strike this year centering around the Ascension Hospital System, from Austin, Tx. to Wichita, KS. and now Detroit, MI.
