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Uploaded: Wednesday, December 19, 2012, 11:29 AM
Nurses picket at 21 Kaiser hospitals
Informational picket protests inadequate staffing and patient care
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Nurses at 21 Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California and the Central Valley pheld a one-day picket Wednesday afternoon in protest of what they allege is inadequate nurse staffing and patient care.
The picketing by the California Nurses Association, which represents about 17,000 nurses at Kaiser hospitals, took place from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at six sites in the East Bay, including Walnut Creek Kaiser, three in San Francisco and along the Peninsula, four in the North Bay and two in the South Bay.
The nurses' union alleges that low staffing has become a chronic problem in some Kaiser emergency rooms and other hospital areas.
"It breaks my heart to see patients having to wait too long to receive care, or are not able to access care because of the high co-payments that Kaiser is charging for them," nurse practitioner Lauri Hoagland said.
Kaiser Permanente released a statement saying the hospitals will operate normally during the picketing, and that the union's claims "have little to do with facts."
The statement by Gay Westfall, senior vice president of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan Northern California, said Kaiser's nurse staffing levels "comply with, and sometimes exceed, state-mandated staffing requirements at our hospitals."
Westfall said hospital officials have limited flexibility to realign staff under their current agreement with the union, so "we have a surplus of hospital RNs every day at certain medical centers and departments throughout the region -- and a need to supplement staffing in others."
Westfall said, "If CNA is willing to bargain earnestly with us, and with flexibility on our nurses' part, we believe we will be able to have
a position for every nurse who wants one."
— Bay City News Service Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
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Posted by Bill, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Dec 20, 2012 at 7:32 am When it comes to any aspect of health care in the US really getting accurate information is nearly impossible. The system is broken, we have greedy health care organizations wanting to make as much off of sick people as they can. Nurses Unions wanting unconscionable pay levels, insurance companies wanting to charge huge premiums and pay out as little as possible to protect the wages of the 1% running these companies. An interesting fact here is that the insurance companies and those aspects of healthcare that are highly profit driven and want to make you go broke affording care are also very adept at making you believe that any nationalized health care is putting you on the road to socialism. AS long as you believe that they will extort as much as they can from you. $5000 deductibles sound good to anyone?
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Posted by Alexis, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Dec 20, 2012 at 1:11 pm Nurses should NOT work 12 hour shifts. Who amongst us is REALLY at their best after working 11 hours and 30 minutes? So, unless those nurses were demonstrating to do away with the risky practice of 12 hour shifts, their concern is NOT really about patient care.
Nurses are very important to health care. They should receive a wage commensurate with their education, expertise and experience. However, in this moment's economy, if the nurses who were demonstrating genuinely feel they are not being appropriately compensated, they should step aside and let someone who wants to work fill that job.
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Posted by jrm, a member of the Vista Grande Elementary School community, on Dec 20, 2012 at 8:43 pm Alexis and Bill are spot on...I am an insider in this conflict and all those in nursing administration now feel the "12 hour shifts" are impacting patient care. The CNA wanted it years ago so their members could work 3 days a week 12 hours a day and make 135 K with full benefits but at the end of the day the full realization is given the technology in managing patients in today's environment they need a break after 8 hours. The "12 hour shifts" are killing patients, the nurses are too tired to wash their hands going to patient to patient. 11,000 Californians die each year due to hospital acquired infections, 3 times more than those of us who die due to car crashes. To put that in perspective, that is like a fully loaded Southwest Airlines flight crashing every 3 days, 365 days of the year. Wake up people, if a Southwest flight flight on the way to L.A from SFO crashed and killed everyone each Monday, Thursday and Saturday every week would you be concerned? Hospital acquired infections are the 4th leading cause of death in America and the nurses who are reluctant to be accountable to wash their hands individually are a key concern. Make sure to ask your Nurse, Doctor and other health care worker if they washed their hand before entering your room. Sully Sullenberger is now a featured speaker in "Patient Safety" conferences to address this calamity.
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