U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders came to New Brunswick on Friday to hear from some of the 1,700 nurses on strike at RWJ University Hospital — a show of support that delighted union leaders but that hospital management dismissed as a political stunt.
Vermont’s senior senator was the lone representative of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions present for a field hearing to call attention to a national shortage of nursing. Sanders, the committee’s chair, also spoke passionately about the nurses who have been on strike for 83 days and nurse-to-patient staffing ratios union members say drove their walkout.
“I know going out on strike is not something that you do every day. You’ve never done it in your lives,” Sanders told the nurses who packed the hearing room at Rutgers University. “And the idea that you’re willing to go without paychecks, to walk on picket lines, to deal with all of the stuff out there in order to protect your patients is rather extraordinary. So, on behalf of the American people, thank you.”
Sanders said he’s concerned about shortages in the health care industry, including among doctors, dentists, mental health professionals and nurses. The New Brunswick hearing focused on nurse-patient staffing ratios, which is the core sticking point between the union and management in the strike.
Sanders sat alone at his table. He criticized RWJBarnabas Health CEO Mark Manigan for declining his invitation to testify at the hearing.
“I would have asked them how their health care system could afford to spend over $100 million on traveling nurses since the strike began, but somehow cannot afford to mandate safe staffing ratios to improve the lives of patients and nurses at the hospital,” Sanders said. The hospital said in a statement to Sanders’ committee it has spent $103 million to date on costs of the strike, including visiting nurses.
But RWJBarnabas Health management viewed the hearing as more of a political show than a…
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