HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Nurses of two of the state’s largest healthcare systems are joining forces to hold an informational picket on Tuesday.

Nurses are expected to line the streets near Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children and at the Punchbowl and West campuses of The Queen’s Medical Center.

They’re holding the rally to raise community awareness on the need for safe nurse-to-patient staffing levels in hospitals.

“These are important safety messages that have gone unheeded by hospital management,” said Charlene Pang, a nurse who has been at Queen’s for the past 16 years. “We hope our informational picket helps more in our community become aware of this critical issue and join us in fighting for safe healthcare standards and to ensure that we can provide the most optimal outcomes and patient care to our patients.”

This comes following recent contract negotiations failed to reach an agreement.

The contract for Queen’s nurses expired on Sunday, June 30 and the contract for Kapiolani nurses expired on Dec. 1, 2023.

Hawaii Pacific Health told HNN the next negotiation session between Kapiolani Medical Center and the union is set for this Thursday.

The Queen’s Health System Senior Vice President and System Chief Nursing Officer Linda Puu told Hawaii News Now in a statement: Queen’s top priority is to be the best place to give and get care. We are so proud of and grateful for all of our patient care staff, including our valued nurses and we are working constructively with the Hawaii Nurses Association (HNA) to reach an agreement that upholds our commitment to promote the safety, well-being and profession of our nurses. We respect our nurses’ right to participate in lawful protected activities such as their scheduled informational picket. Our pledge throughout these negotiations has been to bargain in good faith to reach a mutually acceptable agreement that provides wage increases and other improvements that support our nurses and their profession. To date we have been able to reach agreements on 19 different areas of the contract. We continue to have constructive conversations with HNA and have taken great care to listen and consider every proposal that has been submitted by the union’s bargaining team. Consistent with our Mission, patients will continue to remain our priority during HNA’s informational picket, and there will be no impact to our operations. Our hope is that we can reach an agreement in the near term so our nurses can benefit from the improvements we have offered at the bargaining table.

The informational picket is set for 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

This story will be updated.

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