Patients Wary of Nurses Strike

MINNEAPOLIS - A staph infection put Craig Bistodeau in the hospital. He hopes to be home, before nurses walk-out for a planned one day strike. Bistodeau is a patient at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

He said, "I think it's going to cause problems for some patients... I would assume the general care is probably affected."

The 14 Twin Cities Hospitals impacted by the possible strike are training temporary nurses to replace the full-time staff, set to walk off the job June 10. Leaders at those hospitals said they are reducing case loads and transferring some patients. Many of those patients will end up at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis or Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where nurses won't be striking. Chief Nursing Officer Kathy Wilde of HCMC said, the hospital is expecting a twenty to thirty per cent spike in cases on Thursday, adding about 100 patients.

HCMC is already seeing an increase of patients in its' ER. Wilde said the level one trauma center is well-equipped to handle the heavy load.

The hospitals impacted by the strike will keep ER's and delivery rooms open, but most elective surgeries have been rescheduled. Dr. Kevin Croston of North Memorial Medical Center said, "Because we want to reduce the variability. While we think we have good nurses coming to fill-in, we want to reduce the variability."

Spokespeople for HCMC and Regions told FOX 9, they will plan to add more staff as necessary to care for patients. They predict the increased volume of cases to continue through the weekend, even though the nurses only plan to strike for one day.