Minnesota Nurses Strike: What Patients Should Do

MINNEAPOLIS - On Thursday, 12,000 Minnesota nurses are set to go on strike. The 14 Twin Cities hospitals affected by the strike said Tuesday they are ready to stay open and provide quality care.

How will the strike could affect people who have ongoing medical issues right now?

Fox Medical Expert, Dr. Archelle Georgiou, shares her perspective on how the strike may affect the quality of care for patients.

Dr. Georgiou offered her recommendations for people who need medical
attention:

• Don’t avoid getting care or going to the hospital if you need medical attention.
   
• If you are in the hospital, call on friends and family to stay with you
   
• 24/7 while you are there. They can act as an extra pair of eyes and ears to help keep you safe.
   
• If you have elective surgery scheduled, consider rescheduling it. While the hospitals state they will be fully staffed, the nurses are temporary, replacement staff who are not familiar with the hospital, its layout, and how to get things done.

Dr. Georgiou says her perspective is based on a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that provided some evidence that nurses’ strikes have harmful effects on patients.

The authors analyzed strikes in New York State over a 20-year period and found that inpatient hospital mortality increased by 19.4 percent and that readmission within 30 days increased by 6.5 percent.