300 Nurses Protest
By Stephen Wall, San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.
Nov. 7–COLTON — About 300 county registered nurses picketed Tuesday in front of Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, demanding improved patient safety and working conditions.
Registered nurses at Arrowhead and San Bernardino County health clinics and corrections facilities voted overwhelmingly last month to authorize union negotiators to call for a strike if the county failed to make progress on their concerns.
But nursing and management representatives say a strike is not imminent and hope to resolve outstanding issues at a bargaining session scheduled for today.
“It is true that 80 percent of our issues have been resolved, but the remaining issues are very important,” said Rhonda Watts, a registered nurse who works in Arrowhead Regional’s intensive care unit. “We’re hopeful we can make progress and reach a resolution on these issues so a strike won’t be necessary.”
County officials say talks have been productive.
“These negotiations have been moving very smoothly, very steadily,” said county spokesman David Wert. “There are only a couple of very minor issues still on the table. They are expected to be resolved (today).”
Wert said the unresolved issues have to do with the process by which per-diem nurses, who are called in to work on a day-by-day basis, file grievances. He said the other issue is the process by which nurses file grievances if they believe nurse-to-patient ratios aren’t being met.
“What’s still on the table is the process by which they would file a grievance, not the ratios themselves,” Wert said. “The county medical center has never once been in violation of nurse-to-patient ratios.”
Tuesday’s protest, which was put on by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee, took place on the sidewalk across the street from Arrowhead’s main entrance.
Nurses carried picket signs, shook plastic noisemakers and chanted labor songs during the three-hour event, which they called an “informational picket.”
Nurses who participated did so on their own time during their lunch breaks.
Union leaders say they want the county to include state-mandated nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in the collective bargaining agreement to ensure that patients are treated safely.
“There are nurses here from every department in this hospital because they are concerned about safe staffing,” said Kim Takaoka, a nurse who works in Arrowhead’s mother-baby unit.
Nurses also want to guarantee there are an appropriate number of nurses on duty at all times, including when nurses are on meal or rest breaks.
Nurses also called on the county to adopt a program to reduce injuries and accidents that are caused when nurses have to lift patients.
“We’re hoping the Board of Supervisors will sit up and take notice that we mean business,” said Priscilla Howard, a registered nurse for the sheriff’s department who works in the jail system. “We hope they will resolve our issues to allow our patients to receive the care they deserve.”
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