Ascension reviews

My physician group joined Ascension a few years ago, and since I am not entry level, I have not been eligible for a wage survey/increase for three years, and since it is such a large company, any merit-based increase is nearly impossible to achieve since there are so many levels of approval. I currently make less money relative to the economy than what I was making when I started. I also feel that even though this is a nonprofit, Catholic health organization, it values the bottom line over employee satisfaction and wellbeing- in compensation, benefits, and advancement opportunities. My staff is seriously overworked, with hiring freezes, etc, and in the executive space there continue to be more "thinkers" and "planners" brought in to give us idealistic goals, although what we are lacking is manpower and realism.

This hospital cannot seem to make the environment safe and inviting enough to keep adequate staff around. This hospital is constantly losing nursing staff faster than it gains any new staff. The word is out and few people will want to risk their nursing license to work here! Nurses and nursing assistants are regularly forced to take heavier patient loads than is reasonable or safe. This has been getting steadily worse over the past 3-5 years (per report of multiple other nurses I have spoken with who have worked there longer than I did). The two Medical/Surgical (ie “Med/Surg”) Units were forced to combine in Fall 2021 due to lack of nursing staff. A normal Med/Surg nurse on day shift should safely have no more than 4 patients (maybe 5 for a short term fix, but not the norm). The problem is that at this hospital, Med/Surg nurses have been forced to take 5-7 patients regularly on day shift for several years. This is very unsafe! Nurses and CNAs have been forced into unplanned mandatory overtime at least 2 times a week for several years (as reported to me from other staff and from my personal experience). Nursing staff complains that they are overtired, overworked and burned out—so they leave for other jobs elsewhere. This worsens the staffing deficit. There is a passive-aggressive pharmacist and respiratory therapist there too who are difficult to work with. Unit managers come and go within a matter of a few years because they are burned out and don’t feel supported by upper management. The ICU/AAU is the worst! There is a SMALL group of day-shift nurses (who have already stuck out the turmoil for a number of years) who are untrustworthy, cliquey, and mean bullies to other nurses across the whole hospital. They act like they own the place. The ICU/AAU feels like “Lord of the Flies" where the more dominant personalities bully and destroy the others there. These bully nurses scold other nurses like they are disobedient children (which is mental and emotional abuse), then they report the nurses they had just put down to higher management (like a form of dominance and control, such as a "gang mentality")—and yet these bullies are seen doing the very same inappropriate things they scolded other nurses for doing! (Meaning, these bully nurses are complete hypocrites!) Management above the unit managers ignores the toxic bully behavior, and also does nothing about the ongoing severe staffing deficit. Many nurses I knew there have said they do not trust the upper management above the unit managers. I would not recommend that anyone in their right mind go there to work—or for medical care. This is both a very toxic place to work and is very unsafe for patient care! I honestly would not be surprised if this place closes.