Ascension plans to bring in temporary nurses for four days in response to one-day strike

[Omaha Steve]

Source: The Wichita Eagle

By Kevin Bumgarner June 30, 2026 5:23 AM

Ascension says it plans to have replacement nurses work at Via Christi St. Francis and Via Christi St. Joseph hospitals for at least four days in response to National Nurses United announcing a one-day strike.

The strike is slated to last from 7 a.m. July 6 until 7 a.m. July 7.

What Ascension calls a “full complement of highly skilled, credentialed replacement registered nurses” will work a minimum of four days, however, because that is the minimum length of time the staffing agency for which they work would agree to, according to a press release from Ascension, which owns Via Christi.

Any Ascension nurse that takes part in the strike will be able to return to his or her regularly scheduled shifts beginning the morning of July 10, Ascension said. Any Ascension nurses who don’t participate in the strike will work their regular shifts while the replacement nurses are in place.


Carol Samsel, who has been a registered nurse at Via Christi St. Joseph for 43 years: “We just want our community to be safe, and we want our nurses to be safe.” Kevin Bumgarner The Wichita Eagle


Read more: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article316318283.html

[mdbl]

1. So much for the religious hospitals

They are just business people trying to pay low wages like everyone else.

[Lulu KC]

2. Far from religious

The last time I looked, Ascension is something like 90 percent owned by a private equity firm with assets in the Cayman Islands. It's been a couple of years since I went down that rabbit hole, but I doubt that it's gotten better.

[mdbl]

5. So the name is just gaslighting

They bought up all the hospitals who's name started with St. and turned them into crap.

[Lulu KC]

6. Yup

A friend who worked in the medical field told me this was happening about 30 years ago in the city where I lived at the time. I couldn't quite grasp what she was talking about but she called it.

[walkingman]

3. A Scab by any other name (strike nurses) is still a Scab. ☮

[Javaman]

4. aka scabs. nt