HJNO Jul/Aug 2026

NURSING STRIKE 38 JUL / AUG 2026 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS Editor Thank you for taking time out of your schedule today. We’d like to begin with you personally. Why did you become a nurse, and did you ever imagine that your career would lead you from the bedside to the bargaining table at one of NewOrleans’most important hospitals? Heidi Tujague, RN I’ve been a nurse for 20 years. I became a nurse because I was in hospitality and knew that I needed some- thing that would provide for myself and my family for a long term where I can also still take care of people like I enjoyed in hospitality. And when I decided to go back to school, it was going to be one of three things, either nursing, computers, or educa- tion. When I looked at the big picture, I real- ized nursing would allowme to do all three. As far as becoming part of a labor move- ment, never in my wildest dreams. Editor Are you fromNewOrleans originally? Tujague I am. I am a native of New Orleans East growing up, graduate of Mount Carmel, and moved away in 1994 and moved back to New Orleans in the height of the pandemic to work in the emergency room at Univer- sity Medical Center. Editor That’s a calling. Tujague Especially for what I do. I have a specialty position in the emergency depart- ment. I’m one of the forensic nurses. I per- form the sexual assault and domestic vio- lence exam. Editor That is incredibly important work, and I’d like to come back to that in a separate conversation. Sexual assault and domestic violence care deserve their own attention. Thank you for the work you do. Tujague Thank you. Editor For purposes of this interview, and for readers who have not followed this closely, what is the core issue between UMC nurses and LCMC management right now? Tujague So nothing’s in the court system. We are at the bargaining table still negoti- ating our first contract. We organized back in 2023 and had our election in December of that year where 82% of the nurses at the hospital voted to unionize so we would have a seat at the table and make decisions that affected the way we care for patients. We’ve been bargaining since March of 2024 for that first contract and are still actively in negotiations since then, attempting to final- ize that contract. Editor You work in the emergency depart- ment. What are you seeing on the floor that patients and healthcare leaders may not understand? Tujague For us, a lot of it in the emergency department goes back to patient wait times, and that has a snowball effect from the inpatient units all the way down to the waiting room of the emergency room. We’re having a lot of patients who are admitted to the hospital, but there are no beds avail- able. And the beds aren’t available because there’s no nurse available to open the beds on the inpatient units, because we’re hav- ing a hard time retaining staff at the hos- pital. And when there are no open beds in the inpatient units, [patients] wait in the ER, which makes beds less available for the patients waiting to be seen in the emergency room. So, it just becomes this avalanche snowball effect. Editor So the beds are there, but the staff is not there?