Maui Healthcare System workers plan strike at 3 facilities after months of negotiations

Unionized employees at Maui Memorial Medical Center, Kula Hospital and Lānaʻi State Hospital want fair pay and safe staffing ratios. They have been in negotiations since July and their contract expired last month.

“We want to be there for the community, and that’s why we do this,” said Napua Aloy, a nurse in Maui Memorial’s labor and delivery unit, citing high turnover rates. “But at some point, when we start to see people leaving, we want to keep those nurses and our staff, but they can’t afford to do that.”

Aloy, her husband, and their children were born at Maui Memorial. He says this is personal for him.

“We love being there and want to serve our community there, but it’s getting harder to cover our living expenses,” he said.

The United Nurses and Healthcare Workers of Hawaii union represents approximately 900 workers at the Maui Healthcare System. This includes nurses, social workers, therapists, technicians, clerks, receptionists and more.

Rowan Funes is an emergency room nurse at Maui Memorial and a member of the bargaining team. They are holding talks scheduled through Sunday and are preparing for a three-day strike starting Monday.

“We take everything into account during our negotiations and we do not take striking lightly throughout this entire process,” Funes said. “We want what’s best for the patients, the staff, the hospital, the community in the long term, and we’re going to grow this hospital in the right direction.”

Maui Memorial is the island’s only acute care hospital and has as many annual emergency room visits as Queen’s on Oʻahu, Funes said. He said Queen’s averages 58,000 emergency room visits, while Maui Memorial sees 51,000 visits a year.

Maui Health System said in a statement to HPR that after 14 weeks and 19 bargaining sessions, they reached “tentative agreements on nearly all non-economic items.” “This progress will allow us to focus on wages, benefits and staffing in upcoming bargaining sessions.”

“We value and respect all our employees; “They are at the heart of the safe, quality and compassionate care we provide.”

Maui Health is a nonprofit affiliated with Kaiser Permanente, but representatives emphasize that it is a separate entity.

Employees like Funes dispute this, saying their pay stubs come from Kaiser.

“The nurses at the Kaiser clinic across the street are Kaiser Permanente, so they’re quote-unquote ‘Kaiser,'” he said.

“They earn 10% to 30% more than our hospital staff. So we’re almost like second-class citizens within the same organization.”

But Funes said it’s not just about pay.

“Rates are the maximum number of patients a nurse can take based on their acuity, i.e. how sick they are,” he explained. “We do not have any rate laws in Hawaii like we do in California, and we try to keep rates at a respectable amount for the safety of patients and staff.”

“We are committed to safe, industry-standard, evidence-based staffing protocols that prioritize patient outcomes and safety,” Maui Health said in a statement.

Stephanie Castro is a member of the office staff at Maui Memorial’s outpatient clinic. He previously worked in health care and felt called to return after his father had a medical emergency and had to fly to Oʻahu for surgery.

She took a pay cut when she decided to work in healthcare again and said it was difficult to see her colleagues being forced to take that step.

“I feel like we’re losing the heart of the hospital when we lose staff that are rooted and committed to this community,” he said.

Her son, a senior in high school, is planning his future in the health field and says he is having a hard time trying to support him.

“He wants to go to school to become a cardiothoracic surgeon. This has been his dream since fifth grade,” Castro said.

“As a mother, I want to support her as much as I can, whichever university she wants to attend to realize this dream. But at the same time I’m crying inside, it hurts, how do I do it, how do I help him get there? How can I help him pay for college? That’s part of the concern about fair wages, right? “We all experience these questions in life.”

Lara Iwankiw is one of the few nurses at Lanai Community Hospital, which has 10 beds for long-term care as well as a three-bed emergency room.

“Not a single person I know wants to go out and strike and abandon their patients. “But what we want is to create a better place because our community deserves the best healthcare.”

Iwankiw lives on Maui and takes the ferry to Lānaʻi to work six shifts at a time. He said he loves his job and serving the Lāna’i community.

“We normally work with one nurse per shift,” he said. “Therefore, it is very important for us to have qualified professional staff and experienced people working in the emergency department. “And the problem with having that is that our cost of living is so high here, and the nurses that are qualified to work in the emergency room don’t necessarily come.”

“We are having difficulty finding and retaining staff due to the cost of living and our remoteness,” Iwankiw said.

Castro said the future of his island depends on negotiations.

“This is the future of health care for Maui, this is the future of our community, our families, to make sure they have safer health care and that they can afford to stay here.”

Maui Health said it has plans in place to minimize potential disruption from a possible strike. From now on, hospitals, emergency rooms and clinics will remain open as usual.

Both sides said they were determined to move forward with talks over the weekend to avoid a strike.