How bad is the nursing shortage at St. Joe’s? It depends on whom you ask.

Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part story looking at the nursing shortages in area hospitals.

Travis Maher, chief nursing officer for AMITA Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, said the nationwide nursing shortage is not because of a lack of sufficient nurses.

The issue is an increase in patients, Maher said, as many delayed health care during the pandemic, so they are often very sick when they come to the hospital.

In 2021, about 60,000 people have visited St. Joe’s emergency department. In 2020, that number was about 50,000, Maher said.

Moreover, St. Joe’s typically has 30 to 35 people hospitalized with COVID on any given day,” Maher said. That’s 30 to 35 additional people who wouldn’t have needed health care except for COVID, he said.

“The upside is that those who are being vaccinated are not getting admitted to the ICU. They are not using ICU resources,” Maher said. “Those not vaccinated are typically going to the ICU and getting very sick.”

St. Joe’s is using several strategies to increase nursing staff. Shortly after Maher, whose background is in building flexible work forces, was hired in January, he started meeting with local schools that offer nursing programs, he said.

As a results, St. Joe’s has “doubled down on graduates” and stepped up these nurses’ clinical experiences since many student nurses didn’t receive as much experience in 2020 due to the pandemic, Maher said.

“We have agency nurses in place to help bridge [the shortage] until we get hired up,” Maher said

About 50% of new hires this year were nurses with experience, he said. Some of these nurses worked for places such as Loyola and Rush and some worked locally, Maher said.

St. Joe’s has recruited more than 300 nurses and almost 150 patient care technicians since January, he said. It also limited transfers to the intensive care unit and temporarily closed one medical unit, which has since reopened, Maher said.

Recently a nurse supervisor who worked at St. Joe’s for 45 years retired, he said. But on the same day, Maher met with 10 new hires, he said.

Maher said it typically takes no more than 319 minutes for patients who are admitted from the emergency department to get a bed. On average it takes 180 minutes to get “worked up” in the emergency department and then another 139 to 140 minutes time waiting to get upstairs and taking sure the bed is clean, he said.

So it’s not typical for people to wait for a room, Maher said.

Pat Meade, a staff nurse in St. Joe’s post anesthesia recovery unit and member of a board member of the St. Joseph Nurses Association, which represents union nurses at the Joliet hospital, said she has worked at St. Joe’s for 35 years and patients are being kept in the ER for “outrageous amounts of time.”

She said the nurses are exhausted and, although they are compensated for working extra shifts, the hospital won’t give them a competitive retention bonus, even though nurses are walking away, she said.

Meade said some nurses “have been away from it [a particular assignment] so long they don’t remember what the job entails.”

“It’s not like you can just walk in and take vital signs,” Meade said. “People are so much sicker now.”

At the same time, the hospital is relying on agency nurses to help fill the shortages, Meade said. Meade said some of the agency nurses make more in a week than she makes in two weeks. Meade also did say agency nurses are independent contractors and ineligible for paid time off and benefits.

“They’re not resistant to the assistance of these traveling nurse and agencies because we desperately need the help somewhere,” Meade said.

“The point is you’re paying all of these nurses thousands of dollars a day,” she said, and not paying the same to St. Joe’s “health professionals that are with you when joint commission comes in and when public health comes by.”

Meade, who is 71, said many of the older nurses “can’t walk away in the middle of this.”

“No matter what we feel like and that we think we need to go – and our bodies are telling us we need to go – there is something about the dignity of life and the care nurses provide that is essential to our community and nation-wide,” Meade said. “We have to have those nurses.”

But when staff shortages are affecting care, it’s not useful for nurses to be told their whining, complaining or not keeping up, Meade said. Nurses have filed assignments over objections, sometimes 100 per month, Meade said.

“They’re trying to help the patients and their fellow nurses and make sure the care that is provided is not adequate care; we’re trying to give excellent care,” Meade said. “Many of us are certified and so we are bound by a standard of care and we intend to deliver that.”

Meade said each intensive care unit nurse should have one, maybe two, patients, but many have three and four. Some nurses are caring for four to six COVID-19 patients. And no matter how many patients a nurse has, the nurse still is responsible for checking vitals, dispensing medication, ensuring the patients are fed and hydrated and delivering the overall care.

Filling the shortage with recent graduates isn’t the answer either, since their clinical experience is “marginal,” Meade said. Many of them don’t experience “what nursing really is” until they’re on the floor and must care for four to six patients.

“They’re not ready, these nurses now,” Meade said. “And they will walk away. They’re not like us old war dogs that have been through the trenches. We know what suffering is and we know what nursing is.”

Meade said staff meetings with acronyms and hearing how St. Joe’s is meeting its numbers don’t help her. Saying “the numbers say this and that” does not “equate to the care at the bedside,” Meade said

“Acronyms don’t help me do my job,” Meade said. “All day long I walk into a unit that’s full. We can’t move the patients because we’re full and we don’t have staff. That’s all I see.”

As a Catholic practicing at a Catholic hospital, Meade is disillusioned by the changes.

“I don’t know what’s happened in health care. I am so distressed by it,” Meade said. “Sometimes I wonder how any of us sleep at night.”