Watsonville Community Hospital Nurses to Strike for Safe Patient Care

Watsonville RNs have been in dispute with a series of for-profit chains for several years, starting with the notorious Tennessee-based Community Health Systems (CHS), which has since siphoned off the hospital to Quorum Health Corporation, which continues to share the same corporate law firm and health plan as CHS. Hospital management’s profit-focused mentality, nurses say, is reflected in an outright refusal to address severe deterioration in patient care conditions as well as a hard-line demand for sweeping cuts in nurses’ contractual rights and protections.

“Short staffing is outrageous from a patient safety standpoint. But even if this corporation cares more about its business model and profits than our community,” says Watsonville RN Sandy Flanagan, “the fact remains that chronic understaffing of nurses actually drives up healthcare costs. This corporation’s decision to cut patient care standards and work nurses dangerously short because it refuses to settle a safe contract comes at a dangerous cost to our community.”


http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/thousands-of-nurses-set-late-june-strikes-in-california-and-minnesota/

National Nurses United
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/