A busload of replacement nurses is the target of heckling by striking nurses at The Queen’s Medical Center today. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Two intensive-care patients are so ill that they cannot be safely moved and they need the help of nurses who walked off the job Monday, said St. Francis spokeswoman Maggie Jarrett. Other nurses are needed to deal with transplant patients during and after surgery.

St. Francis made the work request yesterday, citing pre-strike "demands" by the Hawai'i Nurses Association, which is handling negotiations for nearly 1,400 nurses at three O'ahu hospitals. In response, the association yesterday said it would honor the request if the nurses were covered by liability insurance.

Sue Scheider, executive director of the nurses association, said St. Francis has not demonstrated that it has exhausted all other options, which is a part of the association's demands. She was critical of the hospital for remaining silent on the issue for the last two weeks.

"We could have made arrangements in that time but they didn't indicate they were interested," she said.

Critical-care nurse Vince Noren, who is part of the negotiating team, said nurses would definitely go in to help during an emergency or a transplant.

"It is not that the nurses are not in favor of this, but it seems they are taking advantage of us," Noren said. "They want us to go in and take care of things that can already be taken care of by people who are in there."

Nurses do not want to work any longer than necessary, he said.

"They would go in, do what needs to be done and come back out," he said.

No negotiations are scheduled for St. Francis nurses, or for nurses at Kuakini Medical Center and The Queen's Medical Center.

All three hospitals continue to report that patients are being treated without strike-related problems. Nurses filling in for strikers are working long shifts, from 12 hours at Queen's to 16 hours at St. Francis.

The Mainland nurses are drawing heated comments from strikers whenever they arrive or leave, usually in large chartered tour buses.

As three buses arrived at the Queen's loading docks off Miller Street between 6 and 6:30 a.m. today, striking nurses chanted "No aloha for scabs" and shined flashlights into the buses.

"Trash!" screamed nurse Cammie Yee. "Trash go home!"

At one point one of the buses, which had been forced to wait for the picket line to clear, shot forward and nearly collided with a passing ambulance going up Miller street with its lights flashing.

The hospital, which on Tuesday said it was using 250 nurses, is now using about 300 contract nurses, said spokeswoman Lynn Kenton.

"I know the level of care being given is receiving positive responses, hospital-wide," she said.

She said the hospital is working to make sure patients who decided to cross a picket line have no trouble getting to see doctors.

The hospital has not limited admissions and has been at peak capacity ­ from 350 to 408 acute patients ­ all week.

Kuakini officials, who have used 20 replacement nurses since Monday, have decided to bring in 16 more, said hospital spokeswoman Donda Spiker. The extra nurses are needed to handle an expected rise in patients. Although the hospital did not limit admissions in the last 10 days, it discharged or moved patients to reduce the overall work load.

Spiker would not say how many patients are currently being treated.

Nurses at Kapi'olani Medical Center yesterday narrowly approved a new contract that gives them pay raises of at least 22 percent over three years.

The 640 nurses at Kapi'olani accepted the contract with some anger and many reservations, said Cindy Burgess, a Hawai'i Nurses Association member who served on the negotiating committee with Kapi'olani.

"The vote was very close," she said. "Many people are still not happy that management did not address all the issues we felt were important."

The exact vote total was not released.

The contract gives nurses a substantial pay increase but does not fully deal with nurses' concerns about safe staffing levels, nurse retention and medical coverage for retirees, she said.

Effective Dec. 8, the contract gives nurses pay increases of 8 percent, 7 percent and another 7 percent in the next three years.