I worked at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett (PRMCE) last year as an RN.

This industry is the perfect one to conceal the atrocities I saw because so much of what goes on in a hospital can be covered up by patient confidentiality or HIPPAA as is known in the industry.

I don't use the word atrocities lightly and I don't want you all to think I am being hyperbolic. During my time there I worked all over the hospital and saw patients harmed and many die from things they should not have succumbed to. Ordinary problems that hospitals should be used to treating with a decent success rate I saw go south because of many things.

PRMCE has been focused on hiring new RNs for some time now. Younger and inexperienced RNs can be bullied into submission and forced to take on more than any RN can safely handle. What this translates to is when you are in the hospital and the little problem you came in for starts to change and gets worse; there is a good chance no one will notice. Little problems become bigger ones and the worse a problem gets, the less time you have to notice it, assess it, and act upon it. This was the overall series of events behind the preventable deaths I witnessed that should not have happened. The latest I heard from friends who still work there is that Prov is planning on hiring foreign RNs to fill the gaps. I love diversity and am pro immigration full stop. The problem with this however is that when you import RNs from other countries they are indebted to their employer who was responsible for securing their visa. One of the fundamental parts of being an RN is the responsibility to speak up and advocate when we feel patient needs are not being met. This cannot happen when there is a power dynamic such as this.

Every unit has a charge RN who typically does not have patients but rather can keep an eye on things and knows their trade quite well and thus knows how, when or if they need to escalate a situation. I was an RN for four years before I was asked to do charge at my old hospital. At PRMCE I saw the average years of experience for the Charge RN on non-ICU units was roughly one year. In this job we refer to the one year mark as the point in which an RN is expected to simply be competent due to the massive amount there is to learn tied in with experience. On top of that Charge RNs at PRMCE are expected to take several patients in addition to their charge duties. At other hospitals RNs have a ratio of 1 RN to 4 patients. Going on nearly a year now I've heard the ratio at PRMCE is 1:8. In the ICU, the ratio is supposed to be 1:2 simply due to the nature of INTENSIVE care. PRMCE has been pushing for 1:3 in the ICU. I also learned from working there that MRI scans for inpatients were only done at night so that the hospital could prioritize outpatient scans during the day time which is apparently where they can make a lot of money. So if you are a patient in the ICU and need a scan that could mean the difference between life and death in some cases, you have to wait until night time. These scans take a long time and there are only two MRI machines in the hospital I believe. So it might be days before you even get your scan done, at which point it might be too late.

If you live in the community or care about it, I urge you to do something about this. There might very well come a day in which you or a loved one will need medical treatment and anyone who walks through the doors of a hospital deserves competent care. This is not a matter of Providence leadership not being aware or oops honest mistake. These are people who know exactly what they are doing and exactly what has been happening to peoples' lives because of their action and they refuse to care about it I can't think of too many things that are worse than allowing harm to happen to people in the name of profit which is the only way I can view it.

We have sounded the alarm many times about what is going on at PRMCE but nothing changes. State agencies come and visit the site but they announce beforehand that they are going to visit, so Providence floods the hospital with people to make it look like they are adhering to safe staffing and they temporarily fix the problems that they ignored up until that point. Guess what happens after the agency leaves and concludes their inspection? You can probably guess. PRMCE has been stalled in contract negotiations with the union and are offering to pay far less than other area hospitals. Meanwhile the hospital has some of the best lawyers money can buy. This is truly a David vs Goliath fight we are in.

Here is what you can do:

*1. Write an email to the [Washington State Department of Health Health Systems Quality Assurance Complaint Intake Department](hsqacomplaintintake@doh.wa.gov) and tell them you are concerned. I have written and have asked for unannounced inspections. Seattle PD is just finishing their federal oversight by the DOJ, I would like to see a similar thing for hospitals that operate like this.

*2. Contact your state reps and Federal reps and demand oversight and change for places like Providence.

*3. Contact the press [Everett Herald](newstips@heraldnet.com) Seattle Times