Unionized employees at Maui Memorial Medical Center, Kula Hospital and Lānaʻi Community Hospital are asking for fair pay and safe staffing ratios. They’ve been involved in negotiations since July and their contracts expired last month.
“We want to be there for the community and that's why we're doing it,” said Napua Aloy, a nurse in Maui Memorial’s labor and delivery unit, discussing the high staff turnover rates. “But at some point, when we start to see people leaving, we want to be able to retain these nurses, retain our staff, but they just can't afford to do it.”
Aloy, her husband and their children were all born at Maui Memorial. It’s personal for her, she says.
“We love being there, and we want to serve our community there, but it's getting harder for us to sustain our cost of living," she said.
The United Nurses and Health Care Employees of Hawaii union represents about 900 workers in the Maui Health System. That includes nurses, social workers, therapists, technicians, clerks, receptionists and more.
Rowan Funes is an ER nurse at Maui Memorial and a member of the bargaining team. They’re in scheduled negotiations through Sunday, and preparing to strike for three days starting Monday.
“We take everything into account during our negotiations and during this whole process, we don't take going to strike lightly,” Funes said. “We just want, in the long term, what is best for the patients, for the staff, the hospital, for the community and to grow this hospital in the right direction.”
Maui Memorial is the island’s only acute care hospital, and has almost as many ER visits annually as Queen's on Oʻahu, Funes said. Queen’s averages 58,000 emergency department visits, while Maui Memorial sees 51,000 per year, he said.
Maui Health System said in a statement to HPR that after 14 weeks and 19 bargaining sessions, they have reached “tentative agreements for almost all non-economic articles. This progress will allow us to focus upcoming bargaining sessions on wages, benefits, and staffing.”
“We value and respect all of our employees; they are the very heart of the safe, high-quality and compassionate care we provide,” the statement continued.
Maui Health is a nonprofit organization affiliated with Kaiser Permanente, but representatives stress it’s a separate entity.
Employees like Funes take issue with that, saying their payroll comes from Kaiser.
“The Kaiser clinic nurses across the street, which is Kaiser Permanente, so they are, quote-unquote 'Kaiser,'" he said.
“They make anywhere from 10% to 30% more than our staff here at the hospital. So it's almost like we're second-class citizens within the same organization.”
However, Funes said it’s not just about pay.
“Ratios is the max [number] of patients a nurse can get based on acuity, so based on how sick they are,” he explained. “We don't have any type of ratio laws here in Hawaiʻi like they do in California, and we're trying to keep the ratios at a respected amount for safety of the patients and for the staff.”
Maui Health said in a statement, “We adhere to safe, industry-standard, evidence-based staffing protocols that prioritize patient outcomes and safety.”
Stephanie Castro is a member of the clerical staff at Maui Memorial’s outpatient clinic. She previously worked in health care and felt called to return after her dad suffered a medical emergency.
She took a pay cut when she made the decision to reenter work in health care, and says it’s hard to see her colleagues forced to consider a move.
“When we lose staff that have roots and that are tied to this community, I feel like we're losing the heart of the hospital,” she said.
Her son, who’s a senior in high school, plans his future in health care and she says she’s struggling as she tries to support him.
“He wants to go to school to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. It's been his dream since he was in the fifth grade,” Castro said.
“As a mom, I want to support him however I can with whatever college he wants to go to to fulfill that dream. But at the same token inside, I'm crying, I'm hurting, like, how am I going to how am I going to help him get there? How can I help him pay for college? And that's a part of the concern with just fair wages, right? We're all having all these questions in life.”
Lara Iwankiw is one of the few nurses at Lanai Community Hospital, where they have a three-bed emergency room, along with 10 beds for long-term care.
“Not one single person that I know wants to walk out and strike and leave their patients. But what we want is to make a better place, because our community deserves like the best health care,” she said.
Iwankiw lives on Maui and rides the ferry to Lānaʻi to work six shifts at a time. She said she loves her job and serving the Lāna’i community.
“We normally run on with one nurse per shift,” she said. “So it's very crucial for us to have qualified professional staff in the ER working and people with experience. And so the problem with having that is also our cost of living is very high here, and nurses who have the qualifications needed to work in the ER aren't necessarily coming."
"We have a hard time getting staff and keeping staff because of the cost of living and because of how remote we are," Iwankiw said.
Castro said the future of her island depends on their negotiations.
“This is the future of health care for Maui, this is the future of our community, our families, to make sure that they have safer health care conditions and that they can afford to stay here.”
Maui Health said it has plans in place to minimize potential disruptions from a possible strike. As of now, its hospitals, ERs and clinics will remain open as usual.
Both sides said they’re committed to further negotiations over the weekend in an attempt to avoid a strike.
