Sutter Nurses Strike Rally - Burlingame

Reposted from http://www.calnurses.org:

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For Immediate Release
December 14, 2007

Striking Sutter Nurses Rally at St. Luke’s, Mills-Peninsula:
FRIDAY - 95% of RNs Participate in Strike Motivated by Patient Care Problems at Chain

Nearly 5,000 RNs from 13 Sutter Health facilities will conclude their two-day strike with a day of rallies at the endangered St. Luke’s Hospital and at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center. The pickets come one day after 500 RNs descended on CPMC’s California Campus to press their case for significant improvements in patient care and patient safety at the troubled chain and a fair contract for nurses. Sutter will lock out RNs at the majority of the hospitals, lengthening the two-day strike into a four- or five-day lockout.

The strike issues for Sutter RNs are:

* Patient care protections at Sutter hospitals
* Reductions in healthcare coverage and retirement security for Sutter RNs
* Sutter proposals to eliminate essential patient care services in Bay Area communities

WHAT: Bay Area Nurses Rally Against Sutter Health
WHERE: Mills-Peninsula Health Services, 1501 Trousdale Dr., Burlingame
WHEN: Friday, Dec. 14, 11:30 a.m.

WHAT: San Francisco Nurses Rally to Save St. Luke’s Hospital
WHERE: St. Luke’s Hospital, Front Entrance, Cesar Chavez St. @ Valencia St.
WHEN: Friday, Dec. 14, 2:30 p.m.

Nurses are striking because Sutter’s inadequate proposals leave serious patient care issues unaddressed, notably the demand for safe staffing at all times, even during nurse meal and rest breaks. Sutter has declined to guarantee that patient care will be protected in emergency rooms with dedicated Admit nurses and that hospital Rapid Response teams will be available if a patient’s condition deteriorates. At the same time, Sutter’s proposals for nurse health security, medical benefits, and pension improvements continue to be unsatisfactory to RNs and inferior to CNA standards established in contracts with Kaiser Permanente and other facilities.

Sutter’s attempts to close community hospitals throughout the Bay Area have also been a major flashpoint for the nurses in their attempts to negotiate a new contract. Sutter aims to close St. Luke’s Hospital, Sutter Santa Rosa, and San Leandro Hospital—all of which serve a patient population that is poorer and composed of more people of color than other Sutter hospitals.

Sherry Ramsey, an ICU nurse at Sutter Solano said: “We are striking Sutter again mostly over patient care conditions, including no break relief and problems with compliance on the nurse-to-patient ratios. When Sutter forces nurses to work in unsafe conditions, we all pay the price with diminished patient care.”

Genel Morgan, a CCU nurse at Mills-Peninsula added: “Sutter needs to address the patient care and patient and nurse safety issues, which are very serious to the nurses. Instead they seem to have decided on a harassment campaign which will only take us backwards.”

Zenei Cortez, RN, a member of the Council of Presidents of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee commented: “There’s a danger that we’ll see an exodus of experienced nurses out of Sutter facilities. The working conditions are far below other hospitals in the Bay Area.”

Sutter hospitals affected are St. Luke’s Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, San Leandro Hospital, Sutter Delta in Antioch, Sutter Solano in Vallejo, Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, Sutter Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, and Sutter Novato.