Labor Pains

In a timely tale filled with poignant birth stories, Labor Pains, takes its audience on a road trip of a lifetime. Ride along as, Paige O'Neill RN, a labor and delivery nurse brings babies into the world for a living but can't seem to have another of her own. As a natural born healer, Paige intuitively knows how to relieve the pain of her patients; but, when it comes to her own suffering she relies more and more on alcohol. From the sacred realms of the delivery rooms to the dark alleys of binge drinking, this road trip into Mercy General will open your eyes to what really goes on behind the scenes of a health care Goliath that takes over a small community hospital. Here, management cares more about making money than taking care of patients and conditions for the nurses become too much to bear. Labor Pains is transformation: a new life struggles to unfold; a united purpose grips the nurses and a political movement is born. In many workplaces, nurses just want to do their jobs and go home, but at Mercy Hospital getting involved in politics becomes a necessity. Healthcare is changing. The battle lines between big box brands and patient care have been drawn and nurses can no longer remain neutral. Giving birth is hard, but giving birth to change can be even harder. A whole new meaning to Labor Pains emerges when a labor union organizes the nurses to stick together and make a difference. A professional nurses’ association, the Nurses Alliance for Quality Healthcare, teaches the nurses to push back in order to give birth to the changes needed to keep the spirit of nursing alive. Labor Pains bring a whole new appreciation for what nurses do for a living and for what nurses are doing to take a stand for the integrity of care they believe in.