Bay Area healthcare systems face nurse strikes in a week

Nurses and health workers from two health systems in the Bay Area went on strike this week over staffing shortages, low wages and unsafe conditions.

Staff at Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in California will leave at 7:00 a.m. Monday morning.

Union leaders said hospitals were “still not listening” to workers and had few options after more than three months of negotiations.

More than 8,000 Sutter Health workers went on strike for eight hours on Monday amid increased staff movement after two brutal years of Covid.

The strikes came after half of US nurses found they were experiencing more workplace violence than a year ago, with chronic staff shortages and misunderstandings about Covid as the main drivers of the increase.

Pictured are nurses leaving one of Sutter Health’s hospitals yesterday. The hospital said they would not be able to return for five days as additional staff were brought in.

Nurses photographed outside Sutter Health Center in San Francisco, California

More than 5,000 nurses from two Palo Alto hospitals managed by Stanford Health Care are also preparing to leave the wards. They demand better salaries and better staff

The Committee for the Recognition of Nursing Achievement (CRONA) has called strikes at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard in Palo Alto, just outside San Francisco, after nine out of 10 members voted in favor of action.

The union, which represents 5,000 nurses, spent more than 13 weeks negotiating to improve nurses’ salaries, health and wellness offerings, and address chronic staff shortages.

It is estimated that up to 40,000 nursing jobs are currently vacant in California, the equivalent of one in ten jobs.

Charon Brown, a nurse in the hospital’s cardiology department and a member of CRONA, said the strike was “a last resort” but said Stanford “refuses to take our health seriously.”

“The nurses are tired and so are we,” she said.

“We need contracts that give us time to rest and recover, mental health assistance, and pay and benefits to care for us and our families.”

Stanford Health Care reported that striking nurses will not be paid for missed shifts.

Those who remain on the picket at the beginning of May also lose their health benefits.

But CRONA bosses called it “brutal” and “immoral”, and President Colleen Borges said, “Health benefits should not be used against employees, especially healthcare professionals who have made Stanford a healthcare system world-class”.

Stanford said its hospitals will remain open during the strike and will hire replacement nurses to ensure patient care is “uninterrupted.”

Last year, it was named the fourth best hospital system in California and the 12th best nationally.

A one-day nurse’s strike at 15 Sutter Health hospitals was summoned by the California Nurses Association after talks over staffing shortages and health and safety regulations came to a stalemate.

The health system has now told nurses not to return until next Monday as it brings in traveling nurses to cover shifts.

Hospitals participating in the strikes were located in cities such as San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Santa Cruz, and Vallejo.

Yvette Neil, 18, nurse and union leader at Sutter, said: Lake County News: ‘We are on strike for patient safety. Sutter doesn’t have enough staff for nurses.

He also warned that many nurses were tired from the 12-hour shifts at the hospital and that morale on the wards was low.

Sutter Health also went on strike in 2011

The United States is facing a growing nursing crisis amid growing shortages of hospital staff and rising levels of violence to which workers are exposed.

A national survey conducted by National Nurses United found that 48% of nurses will experience more workplace violence this year than before.

More than seven out of ten nurses said their work was slightly or much worse than before the Covid pandemic, and 80% more stressful.