WARREN, Pa. — Employees held an information picket at Warren General Hospital on Friday.

According to the Times Observer, members of the Warren General Hospital Professional Employees Association picketed and held a rally with speeches on Friday to call attention to staffing issues inside the hospital.

A release from the Pennsylvania Association of School Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) noted that while direct care staff have been on the front lines of the COVID pandemic for the last year and a half, they have continued to routinely required to care for more patients than is safe due to chronic short-staffing.

“We have a law in Pennsylvania that limits the number of children who can be assigned to a childcare worker in daycare centers – why don’t sick children have the same protection?” PASNAP President Maureen May, R.N., asked in the release, calling the situation “a crisis for both patients and staff.”

The release stated the purpose of the informational picket was “to alert their community to the conditions inside the hospital and to implore management to prioritize patient safety and take immediate action to safely staff the hospital.”