Nurses Protest At 7 Regional Kaiser Permanente Hospitals
Kaiser disputes the union's allegation that they have failed to hire sufficient nursing staff, saying it has hired nearly 3,000 nurses over the past two years, including 800 this year.
Bay Area News Group:
Kaiser Permanente Nurses Protesting Staffing Levels
Nurses at Kaiser Permanente will stage pickets at seven regional hospitals Wednesday to draw attention to staffing levels they say are affecting the quality of care and putting patients at risk. The pickets will include Kaiser hospitals in Oakland, Vallejo, Santa Clara and San Francisco, and will not result in work stoppages, said Katy Roemer, a registered nurse at Kaiser Oakland and board member for the California Nurses Association, which represents some 86,000 nurses statewide. Nurses will be protesting the hospital's failure to hire more nurses, including resource nurses, who provide support to bedside nurses, and training nurses for specialty areas that have a shortage of staff, such as labor and delivery and intensive care, Roemer said. (Ioffee, 7/19)