Dec. 05, 2006 Copyright C Las Vegas Review-Journal Picketing nurse worries about effect on patients Hopes for compromise on staffing issue dashed By PAUL HARASIM  <<a href="http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/rjstaff.html" target="_blank"> http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/rjstaff.html</a>> REVIEW-JOURNAL Even after 38 years of nursing -- and believing hospital administrators routinely skimp on personnel in the name of profits -- registered nurse Pat Cheney never thought it would come to this.         But there she was in her white nurse's jacket, red scrub pants and white tennis shoes on a chilly Monday morning, carrying a picket sign outside Desert Springs Hospital. As hundreds of nurses walked on Flamingo Road and chanted the message that filled their placards -- "Patients, Not Profits" -- Cheney shook her head. "I told my patients that if I had to do this it would kill me, and that's what it feels like," she said. "I told them it would hurt my heart, and it does. I told them that if I did this it didn't mean I didn't love them. I told them if we didn't win this contract it would jeopardize the lives of patients. And you know what they told me -- 'You go girl.' " Cheney, 62, who works in the Cardiac Progressive Care Unit at Desert Springs, expected that a compromise would be worked out between management and nurses, as had happened at facilities she's worked at in Florida, California and Hawaii. "It's so sad that reason can't prevail," said Cheney, who makes about $55,000 a year. To Cheney, the reason for the labor strife now playing out at Universal Health Services' Valley and Desert Springs hospitals, is largely over nurse-patient ratios that place patients at risk. "You'd think management would care about what's best for patients." Universal Health's management, led by chief executive officer Alan Miller, whose $18 million compensation in 2005 ranked second highest in the nation for CEOs of acute care hospital chains, disagrees with Cheney's assessment. It's Web site states its "success comes from a responsive management style, continuity of senior management and a service philosophy based on quality healthcare at affordable cost, competence and integrity." Cheney, however, said that in her unit of the hospital -- where 12 nurses are on their feet at least 10 hours a day to work with heart patients just released from intensive care -- quality is given short shrift. She said three patients are all a nurse can safely take care of, not the current four at Desert Springs. She knows that the union negotiated a 1 to 4 nurse-patient ratio for a similar unit at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, but she said it isn't good enough. "I talked with a nurse in Washington state who is now working a 1 to 3 ratio in my type of unit," she said. "That's where we should be. Lives are literally at stake." Cheney said the duties of nurses in her unit include checking vital signs every four hours; checking blood sugar of diabetics every four hours; giving medication at least three times a day; monitoring cardiac, blood pressure, blood thinning and insulin drips; walking open heart surgery patients at least three times a day; changing diapers of incontinent patients at least three times a day, taking doctor's orders for change in diet and medications; monitoring oxygen saturation. Among other duties, they also teach patients how to handle disease, conditions and upcoming procedures. "Now, remember, when a patient goes bad, we have to drop everything and leave the other patients," said Cheney." And there's nobody to pick it up. We don't even have a certified nurse's assistant to help us. And that's for one reason only -- to maximize profits." Cheney, who works three 12-hour shifts each week, said her profession can remain honorable if nurses are able to treat patients with the respect they deserve. "These are people who are fearful for their lives, who are helpless," she said. "They put their trust in us and we must deliver." Only through the pressure of legislation and unions, Cheney is convinced, will hospitals staff their hospitals correctly. Once, Cheney wanted to be a dancer like Ann-Margret. She and her husband, who is a truck driver, go ballroom dancing, but not, she admits, as much as she would like. She takes jazzercise classes, walks several miles a week and swims in her home pool -- all, she said, in an effort to deal with job stress. "There are days when I have to hold someone's hand as (a patient) dies," she said. "I don't forget that." A couple weeks ago, she talked a 45-year-old patient into undergoing a procedure that gave her a chance to live. The woman, who had a severe respiratory condition that weakened her heart, did not want to undergo the week-long procedure that would place an oxygen tube down her throat and put her on a ventilator. "She had that treatment before and found it very uncomfortable," Cheney said. "But I got her daughter and grandchild and significant other in the room and we convinced her that they still needed her in their lives." A week later the woman, who remains on medication for her chronic lung condition, was walking around the hospital, grateful, and raring to go home, Cheney said. "That's why I went into nursing," Cheney said, tears streaming down her face. "I wanted to help people, not walk a picket line."