Nurses at Logan Health are concerned with management’s identified priorities. It appears their goal is continued acquisition of medical facilities (the current merger with Billings Clinic), while the nationwide nursing shortage continues to cause short staffing, nurse burnout, and lack of retention. We are currently at the bargaining table, and have made our priorities known, and identified that the only way to recruit and retain quality nurses is with livable wages. Our community deserves the best nursing care possible, and your nurses deserve to live in the community they work in. To recruit nurses nationwide, Logan Health must improve wages. With the rise in cost of living in the Flathead Valley, nurses are leaving every day. The lens management looks through must include more than just nursing wages in Montana. We, your Logan Health nurses, are asking the community to stand with us. Let management at Logan Health know they need to increase wages that will recruit and retain, in order for nurses to be able to afford to live here and provide the excellent care our community deserves and respects, while changing their priority from acquisitions to safe staffing.
Donna M. Nelson, RN
Bigfork