Member Story: Going Up! Sacred Heart Workers Fight to Fix a Dangerous Elevator

Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center Transporter Jenny C.

Jenny C., a transporter at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, knows what it looks like when management hopes a problem will just go away.

Jenny has watched the facility's transport elevators malfunction for more than a year, filing report after report after each incident she witnessed. Supervisors did not appear to take these complaints seriously. 

The situation turned from a constant frustration into an outright crisis one day when a coworker reported that the transport elevator fell, injuring them. The next day, another coworker reported that the same elevator fell again, injuring them as well.

From the beginning, Jenny understood the power of speaking up. When she noticed the problem, she immediately reported it to her Union Rep, who instructed her to start writing down everything.

So she started writing down every malfunction, and she encouraged her coworkers to do the same. When she began to feel as if management was ignoring her formal complaints, she worked with our union to escalate those complaints with reports to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Washington State Department of Labor & Industry.

Jenny's diligence empowered our union to force a state agency to investigate the matter. That report has been completed, but the hospital has yet to turn it over to our union, claiming that they're awaiting legal review.

In the meantime, just this week, Jenny says the elevators are still malfunctioning. 

"Safety is a shared responsibility," Jenny said. "If you see something, say something -- and document everything."

Her coworkers at Providence Sacred Heart are safer today because she did exactly that, but the fight continues.