3 Nurses Suspended By Ascension, Turmoil At St. Joe's Hospital

JOLIET, IL — Joliet's constantly renamed hospital campus along Madison Street and Glenwood Avenue — now known as the Ascension Saint Joseph's Medical Center of Joliet — remains in a state of turmoil this weekend after three nurses got suspended Saturday night.

According to the Illinois Nurses Association, the nurses at Ascension St. Joe's were escorted out of the hospital Friday evening after they called attention to a dire nursing shortage in the emergency room.

Hospital guidelines recommend the unit be staffed with 10 nurses, but only four were available to treat 46 patients, according to the INA.

“It is unacceptable that our nurses were forced off the premises by security personnel and locked out of the hospital," INA Executive Director Julia Bartmes said in a correspondence to the hospital. "The INA will pursue all legal avenues to ensure that our nurses are protected in their employment and that they are protected in their service to the patients of St. Joe's."

According to the INA, Ascension's hospital management ignored the nurses’ pleas, and instead escorted the nurses out of the hospital on Friday night.

At Saturday night's news conference, covered by Joliet Patch, WGN Channel 9 and Joliet's print newspaper, Hannah Puhr spoke on behalf of her employer's night shift nurses. Puhr said she works as a day shift Emergency Room nurse.

"Shout out to them," Puhr remarked. "They're amazing, they have some of the best nurses that I know.

"They were scheduled to have four staff members when they should have had anywhere from 12 to 14 last night. There were 51 patients in the emergency room at that time. If you do the math, it's incredible and dangerous. We were very concerned about it, this has been happening for months and years and enough is enough, we are sick of it. We care about our patients, and we don't want to be making do when our patients our suffering."

Under the terms of the nurses' contract, Puhr said, "we are asking for help, we are asking for staff, we are asking for resources so that we can care for this community and that we can have a functioning hospital, and we are ready to do it. We are ready to do the hard work."

Nurses and the hospital signed a three-year contract in 2020 after a 10-day strike and staffing issues were a significant point of contention during the negotiations, according to the nurses union.

On Friday night, the Ascension St. Joe's nurses reported they heard threats of retaliation and termination, the INA announced. Nurses working in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit experienced a similar situation on Monday evening.

On Saturday night, about 100 people attended the news conference held outside the Ascension St. Joe's hospital along Glenwood Avenue. Joliet Mayor Bob O'Dekirk as well as at-large Councilmen Joe Clement and Cesar Guerrero were also in attendance.

O'Dekirk said that St. Joe's hospital is a huge part of the city's history and importance, and he wants to see the management and nurses union were together rather than having this current state of turmoil, which is not good for the city.

At one point, an older demonstrator, who held a sign supporting the nurses, urged O'Dekirk to get involved to bring this controversy involving the safety of Joliet's hospitalized patients to an end.

"What they're doing is illegal," the man told O'Dekirk, referring to the management at Ascension St. Joe's.

"Will County Health Department could come in and shut them down," O'Dekirk told the demonstrator.

On Monday morning, O'Dekirk notified Joliet Patch that he subsequently learned that the county health department does not have any oversight or authority to oversee matters involving Ascension St. Joseph.

Rather, any matters involving safety or regulation of St. Joe's hospital is done by the Illinois Department of Public Health, according to Will County Health Department Executive Director Susan Olenek.