Nurses at the Quincy Veterans Home are protesting poor working conditions today.
KHQA reports that a lack of staffing has created unsafe working conditions for nurses and for residents of the home. President of the Illinois Nurses Association Tori Dameron says that the staffing issues have persisted since before the Covid-19 pandemic at the facility.
With nearly 20 RN vacancies at the home, nurses who work at the facility say they are being slammed with more tasks, which they say increase the potential for making errors and also put them in harms way, especially if residents at the home get combative and violent. Dameron says that staffing nurses is a problem all over, especially in the state’s facilities.
Dameron told KHQA that calls for help and support from the State of Illinois have fallen on deaf ears. She says she hopes today’s protest will put pressure on lawmakers and the Pritzker Administration to provide support to the long-standing issue.