How a Sprawling Hospital Chain Ignited Its Own Staffing Crisis

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Patients lingered for hours on gurneys with serious, time-sensitive problems. Surgeries were delayed. Other patients developed bed sores — gaping wounds that for frail patients can be deadly — because they were not repositioned often enough.“You feel awful because you know you’re not turning these patients,” said Jillian Wahlfors, a nurse at Genesys. “You know they’re getting their meds late. You don’t have time to listen to them. They’re having accidents, because you can’t get in fast enough to take them to the bathroom.”Nick Ragone, an Ascension spokesman, denied that cost-cutting contributed to staffing shortages during the pandemic. Such a claim, he said, “is fundamentally misguided, misleading and dem …

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