Pushing back Friday against a parking policy that has resulted in several employee vehicles being towed, nurses and doctors at the Ludeman Developmental Center in Park Forest took their protest to the streets.
Holding signs reading “Tow less, care more” and chanting “we are nurses, we save lives,” 20 employees marched outside the entrance of Ludeman, which cares for adults 18 and older with developmental disabilities.
Nurses and doctors said the recently implemented policy is affecting their ability to care for patients on the campus, 114 N. Orchard Dr., which has 380 patients living in 40 residential homes spread over 60 acres.
Kumar Swamy, a nurse at Ludeman for 23 years, said he had “never seen this kind of situation.”
“It has made it very difficult” to care for patients, the Tinley Park resident said.
Two doctors who joined in the demonstration said they are concerned because the policy is affecting nurses’ ability to do their work.
“We don’t feel good because it is affecting our nurses and patients,” Ali Minhas, one of four doctors at Ludeman, said as he stood with protesting nurses.
Abdul Sabor, another doctor, said the only option for nurses is to park in lots that can be quite a distance from the patient homes, especially if they are making rounds at several locations, then walking from house to house.
“If there is a medical emergency, the houses can be almost half a mile apart,” he said. “Especially at night, the nurses don’t feel safe (walking the grounds).”
The recent parking policy declares most of the campus a fire lane, with vehicles subjected to towing. Nurses who’ve had their cars towed said they needed to pay $240 to retrieve vehicles from an impound lot in Markham.
Marika Loftman-Davis, a nurse at Ludeman and chief union steward for the Illinois Nurses Association at the facility, said 26 vehicles were towed in one night, but she was unsure whether they were all nurses’ vehicles. She said Friday that, in one day, tow and inpound fees in excess of $9,000 were levied against nurses who had vehicles hauled away.
The union has lodged a complaint with Ludeman management about the new policy.
A message left Friday with Ludeman’s director was not immediately returned, and the administration did not respond to requests for comment when the nurses first voiced objection.
Swamy said parking placards been issued by Park Forest police to nurses and other Ludeman employees were declared invalid. In the past, Minhas said, cars parked illegally were ticketed and a $50 fine assessed.
Swamy did not have his vehicle towed, but that during the course of his daytime shift may have to check in on 30 to 40 patients. Some of the visits might be routine, such as administering medications or checking vital signs, Swamy said.
“We do attend to emergency calls, which may be seizures, which may be falls,” he said. “We are also carrying our nursing supplies.”
“People are very, very fragile,” Swamy said of the Ludeman patients. “We save lives, we work hard here.”
Minhas said he has raised concerns with Ludeman management about the new parking and towing policy.
“This is not OK,” he said. “It impacts the patient care.”
At one point during the demonstration, a tow truck with a car hooked on the back was pulling out of the Ludeman property. Nurses saw it and tried to form a blockade.
Over a loudspeaker in his truck, the driver said “you know the rules” and creeped the truck slowly past the group.
At another point, two Park Forest police vehicles pulled onto the property, with an officer instructing the nurses to move farther off the property. It was an order they initially dismissed before resuming the protest a bit farther off a road that encircles the campus.
Lenora Gordon, a case manager at Ludeman, was part of the demonstration. She said she recently had her car towed.
Gordon said as a case manager she follows nurses as they make their rounds, and that she had parked in a lot next to a curve.
“I was gone about 5 or 10 minutes” and was towed, she said, having to pay $240 to get her car.
Gordon said she thinks the tow trucks are on the hunt for potential policy violators.
“They be stalking people,” she said.
Barbara Carter, who said she has worked as a nurse at Ludeman for nearly six years, said walking from house to house to conduct patient rounds isn’t always ideal. While her vehicle was not towed, Carter said a co-worker was towed.
Carter said that apart from lugging a bag of supplies they may need to care for patients, at times they are towing an oxygen tank.
“The grounds and sidewalks are so uneven,” she said. “If I work at night and it’s snowing or raining, am I supposed to walk a block?”
“This is not just about the safety of patients, but nurses as well,” Carter said.
