Did you know when nurses strike that patient care might suffer?

Consider me shocked and alarmed as well.*

Nurses at Boston's Tufts Medical Center (which is affiliated as a teaching hospital with Tufts University) went on a one day strike earlier this week. Miffed, executives at Tufts Medical Center decided to lock the nurses out for four extra days as punishment. In the meantime, nurses from temp agencies have been filling in.

As a surprise to apparently some, studies show not having experienced nurses on hand leads to worse patient care. According to the Boston Globe:

"MIT economist Jonathan Gruber and Samuel Kleiner of Cornell University analyzed 50 strikes in New York between 1983 and 2004. They calculated that mortality rose to 2.22 percent on average during strikes, compared to 1.86 percent in the periods before and after the job actions — a 19.4 percent jump. Readmissions increased by an average of 6.5 percent, according to their 2010 paper.

'We found consistent evidence that patient outcomes worsened,' Gruber said in an interview."

Even the world's cheapest amusement park tarot card reader saw that one coming, but I'm glad folks at MIT and Cornell confirm what we all knew.

For now, the lockout continues.


*Not shocked