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Emergency room doctors at Ascension hospital go on strike
After years of asking for better working conditions, emergency room doctors at Ascension St. John in Detroit walked off the job. The way they see it, wait times as long a 15 hours is too long for people to be waiting to be seen - and the only way to get better conditions was to go on strike.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - Doctors and physicians' assistants walked off the job at Ascension St. John in Detroit on Thursday afternoon after weeks of warning that dire action would be necessary to remedy working conditions in the emergency room.
The strike began Thursday afternoon and will go on for 24 hours, according to organizers.
It was the latest escalation of a dispute over resources in hospitals, where medical teams have warned low staffing is leading to wait times of sometimes 15 hours.
The longer patients wait in the emergency room, the worse their health outcomes are, Dr. John Bahling, MD, told FOX 2.
"Ask anybody leaving the ER today. These are not made-up numbers. There are people coming in who are concerned they're having a heart attack, they're concerned they're having a stroke, broke a bone, they had a bad fall, they have a parent whose suffering, a child whose suffering," he said.
But when people arrive, the expectation they're seen quickly is not the case, he said. Instead, the staffing company they're employed by, St. John's Emergency Services - a subsidiary of the private equity firm TeamHealth - isn't investing resources to keep up with proper care.
"They make millions of dollars off the backs of the patients that come into this hospital and that needs to be reinvested into the resources available. If they're not going to do it, the doctors are going to have to be the ones to hold them accountable," he said.
ER workers at Ascension St. John vote to strike for 24 hours in Detroit
Patients at Ascension St. John Hospital in Detroit are reportedly waiting as long as 17 hours in the ER. Members of the Greater Detroit Association of Emergency Physicians say that such extensive waits have become the norm.
Bahling was among several doctors who walked out of the hospital at 2 p.m. Thursday.
While the hospital located at 22101 Moross Road was the face of the labor strike deployed by the doctors, Bahling said its a problem plaguing emergency rooms around the country.
"(It's) happening not just here at St. John, but all over the country with private equity buying up physician staffing groups," he said ,"so we're just fortunate enough that you had a group of people here - we're Detroiters and we're used to fighting and so Detroit is going to be on the forefront of issues like this."
The doctors have been asking for improvements to the emergency room for years, Bahling said, and going on strike represented the last straw.
According to Ascension, the ER will remain open nd fully operational for those in need of care during the strike.
"The safety and well-being of our patients, visitors, associates and physicians is our first priority," according to a statement from Ascension. "TeamHealth has a comprehensive contingency plan in place with the hospital that will ensure these contracted provider services, and safe patient care, will be uninterrupted."
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ER doctors, nurses strike outside Ascension St. John in Detroit
The strike began Thursday afternoon and will go on for 24 hours, according to organizers.
Meantime, the doctors and their staffers say they will keep up their push even after returning to the job at 2 p.m. tomorrow.
"We are so hopeful that we will be able to come to an agreement with our employer and find some advocacy on behalf of the hospital," Bahling said.
TeamHealth released a statement regarding the strike:
"While clinicians affiliated with the Greater Detroit Association of Emergency Physicians are on strike, TeamHealth has worked closely with St. John Hospital to ensure the emergency department remains fully staffed and day-to-day operations will not be interrupted. Patients needing critical emergency care during this time should continue to come to the emergency department at Ascension St. John Hospital.
"TeamHealth’s top priorities are delivering high-quality patient care and supporting our frontline clinicians, as they care for our communities 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. TeamHealth has provided clinicians with support and resources for over 40 years, even in the face of material reimbursement pressure from private insurers and Medicare.
"We have negotiated in good faith with the union, and any statement to the contrary is false. We invite the union’s leadership to return to the bargaining table and secure a resolution on reasonable and sustainable terms."
TeamHealth also refuted claims by the union:
Keeping Emergency Care Wait Times Low – Every second matters in an emergency, and TeamHealth is committed to ensuring patients receive care as quickly as possible. The median door to doctor time at Ascension St. John Emergency Department in 2023 was 25 minutes. In 2024, wait times dropped to 15 minutes, far less than the 10 to 15 hours the union claims.
Fully Staffing the Emergency Department - The Ascension St. John emergency department is fully staffed today. While clinicians saw an average of 2.6 patients per hour in 2014, before TeamHealth took over the St. John emergency department, TeamHealth in 2023 had successfully reduced this to 1.9 patients per hour. TeamHealth clinicians are spending more time with every patient that comes into the emergency department.
Doctors Make the Crucial Care Decisions - TeamHealth always puts patient care and clinician wellbeing first, regardless of our ownership model. Every dollar in capital that we generate at TeamHealth stays in TeamHealth. Doctors, and no one else, make decisions in the best interest of patient care.