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Frontline staff tell committee chronic vacancies and overtime undermine safety at Saint Elizabeth—Hospital
Summary
Frontline nurses and BHTs testified to chronic understaffing, mandatory-feeling overtime, and low morale; DBH reported dozens of vacancies and active recruitments but could not yet show that hires have stabilized staffing or reduced overtime costs.
Multiple witnesses described staffing shortages as the underpinning problem at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital, linking understaffing to increased use of overtime, burnout, and unsafe conditions. Nurses and behavioral health technicians testified that scheduled staffing frequently falls below the nursing matrix and that staff sometimes feel they "cannot leave" a unit until relief arrives.
"You can't leave," several bedside staff said when asked whether overtime was effectively mandatory during coverage gaps. Council members pressed hospital leaders for hard numbers: DBH reported roughly 82 vacancies at the time of the hearing, including 26 nurse FTEs and 18 behavioral health technician vacancies, and said recruitment postings had been placed for multiple roles.
Hospital leaders described immediate steps: posting RN and BHT openings, deploying retention bonuses ($1,500 for nurses under the collective bargaining agreement), and funneling applicants through a centralized hiring pipeline. The hospital's AFO reported high overtime hours for BHTs and nurses in the prior fiscal year and explained that some supply budget lines are revenue-dependent, a dynamic that has complicated on-the-ground purchasing.
Committee requests and next steps: the chair asked DBH to supply up-to-date vacancy reports, a breakdown of overtime hours by job class and month, and exit-survey commitments to better understand drivers of turnover. DBH agreed to produce those figures for the committee's performance oversight session in early February.
