the situation between Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital's Administration and its nurses is teetering closer to a strike after the nurses Union rejected the hospital's latest contract offer and authorized a work stoppage now the union is calling out the hospital for asking medical students to jump in and provide medical care if nurses walk off the job Ted Goldberg has the story New Jersey's nursing shortage can be seen at RWJ University Hospital where some doctors say there's either not enough nurses or a revolving door of them I've been here for 13 years I think there's one nurse that that is still in our department that has been here when I was hired younger nurses don't want to stay when they have when they're overworked they when the workload is just too much the Acuity was too high I think if we fix the safe Staffing part we can definitely improve nursing is coming into the profession Judy danella leads the union that represents more than 1700 verses there and disagreement on a new contract means those nurses could go on strike this Friday that's nearly all of the nurses there the looming threat led to Rutgers Dean sending out emails asking medical students to volunteer for four hour morning shifts serving as support staff during the transition to replacement nurses our techs do a lot of work they draw blood they do changes they do Vital Signs they do EKGs I don't think a medical student can just come in and do that that's not what they went to school for they went to school like I said to be a medical doctor and to put them in this position I think is grossly unfair to them it only hurts you know each other and um and our ability to work together as a healthcare team when you have one set of of workers or students or trainees undermining the concerns and the argument of another zeitel eichenberg is a resident at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School her concern is that overworked students might feel pressured to cross the incoming picket line medical school is expensive they're paying to come and learn how to be Physicians they're not paying to come and and be pressured to be free workers in a situation where frankly the employee the employer should be focused on bargaining in good faith with its nursing Union I think it puts the the medical students especially in a very hard situation because they're being asked by Administration to kind of give up their clinical rotations to come in and help out and I think the vast majority of the the students and residents would do anything that's required to help out in terms of patient care but kind of at what expense I mean having their education jeopardized to kind of fill in for nurses I think is very problematic the alternative is travel nurses danella says they come with their own set of issues all they care about is the money they don't care about the patient in that bed we're looking for the long-term future of nursing the long-term future to see if like I said the younger nurses will come into the profession and that the patient in that bed gets the safest care not just somebody who's there for the money they're in here for you know uh you know maybe three months at a time and they're not as vested in the system as those that are here full-time right those that are here full-time we know them that they know us we socialize with them at times but they know how we practice they know things that we want if there's no agreement reached this week you can expect nurses to start walking out and picketing on Friday morning at seven o'clock in New Brunswick I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music] [Music]