Patton Nurses Rally for Raise
By Joe Nelson, San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.
Mar. 29–Mabel Delia Dobanton stood at the entrance to Patton State Hospital on Highland Avenue Wednesday, blowing a whistle and waving a sign reading “Honk to support state nurses” at passing vehicles.
The 50-year-old Loma Linda resident and nurse of 30 years — the last two of those years spent at the mental hospital near San Bernardino — gave a rallying cry: “Come on, nurses!”
Her cries were met with a cacophony of trumpeting car horns and chanting from fellow nurses and medical staff during a midday protest demanding pay raises to thwart a mass exodus of hospital workers headed to the state prison system, lured by the promise of higher pay.
“What this is resulting in are more patient deaths, a lack of patient care and less continuity of care, because we’re losing all our medical staff to the Department of Corrections,” said Carise Ray, a nurse practitioner at Patton for 22 years and a union steward.
Fifty-two-year-old Redlands resident Christina Villarreal, a nurse at the hospital for the last 18 years, stood near the hospital entrance, speaking into a bullhorn.
“Gov. Arnold (Schwarzenegger), keep all patients safe at state hospitals. Equal pay for equal work,” Villarreal said.
She said she makes about $80,000 a year at Patton, but would make $20,000 more annually if she were to work for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
A state prison crisis that prompted criticism of its patient medical care proded federal courts to order salary increases to medical staff, which consequently triggered the exodus of employees from state mental hospitals to the prison system for more pay.
Like her colleague Dobanton, Villarreal enjoys working at Patton, and would like to stay if parity is reached.
“I like working with these patients,” Villarreal said. “You see them come in. It’s good to see them make progress, and some of them get let out into the community.”
According to numbers provided by the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 80,000 state employees throughout California, a registered nurse working at a California mental hospital makes between $4,951 and $6,637 per month, while a nurse working for the prison system makes between $7,045 and $8,766 monthly.
And a licensed vocational nurse working at a state mental hospital makes between $2,726 and $3,425 a month, whereas one working in the prison system makes between $3,385 and $4,320 monthly.
For medical doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists, the disparities are even greater.
Dr. Talat Khan, who has been tending to the physical care of patients at Patton for 21 years, said she makes about $150,000 a year but can make between $210,000 and $250,000 a year in the prison system.
So, she’s been filling out applications.
“I have five applications filled out,” Khan said.
Patton’s chief of the medical staff, Dr. Raafat Girgis, recently left the hospital, Khan said.
Other losses are hurting the hospital, reflective of what’s been occurring throughout the state, at Atascadero State Hospital in Northern California and Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk.
“All of our dietitians applied in corrections because their salary was going to go up 49 percent,” Ray said.
Mario Valenzuela, a union labor representative, said one patient was killed at Patton in October during a fight with another patient. Since the beginning of the year, there have been two suicides at Atascadero.
He said union representatives met Wednesday in Sacramento with representatives of the Department of Personnel Administration, the negotiating body for the state, to discuss wage hikes.
To immediately address the crisis, Dr. Stephen Mayberg, the director of the California Department of Mental Health, announced on March 21 a plan for temporary wage increases to within 5 percent and 18 percent of what the Department of Corrections pays its employees.
“I think people see there was attention being paid to this in Sacramento, that there was a crisis being acknowledged,” Mayberg said. “It’s not to say that people think it’s a solution, but it opens the doors to these discussions and hopefully prevents a further exodus of staff.”
Patton spokeswoman Cindy Barrett said that while the hospital has seen a chunk of its staff leave, and others planning to leave, the hospital has been able to maintain the minimum number of nurses and staffing needed to keep its license.
“We always meet our staffing ratios,” she said.
—–
To see more of the San Bernardino County Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sbsun.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.