Nurses at the Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame strike

“The nurses have been through a lot. They have been suffering from a lot of morale distress and lack of PPE,” Christine Picard, a nurse at Mills-Peninsula in Burlingame, said.

More than 8,000 nurses and health care workers participated in the April 18 strikes against Sutter Health. Other locations in San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland and the East Bay also participated. Sutter Health and CNA have been negotiating since June 2021, with little movement. Nurses picketed from 7-11 a.m. and 2-6 p.m. and gave advance notice to Sutter Health for the strike.

Picard said Sutter Health is cutting staffing at a crucial time coming out of pandemic restrictions. Nurses want more night shift staff and hospital administration to not count the charge nurse in the staffing ratio. A charge nurse is responsible for supervising staff or a unit and ensuring a shift runs smoothly. Instead of focusing on nursing ratios by the number of patients, Mills-Peninsula nurses want Sutter Health to take stock based on patient acuity.

Not having an extra nurse on the night shift could lead to fatigue and potential mistakes, with many nurses working through meals and breaks. The push to provide nurses with proper staffing to look after patients has been an ongoing issue. Picard noted the hospital has not been willing to guarantee anything and has been resistant to suggestions, with Sutter Health often unprepared to negotiate. Tense discussions also make it more challenging to get people into nursing, particularly as strikes have been needed in previous contract negotiations to reach agreements.

Picard said providing added protections was critical given a potential COVID-19 surge in the coming weeks. Mills-Peninsula is already seeing more COVID patients admitted to the hospital, she noted.

Sutter Health noted it had secured more than 165 million pieces of PPE, including masks, isolation gowns and face shields, for patients and providers to maintain an adequate supply through surges. It also maintained it continues to recruit additional workers to meet staffing challenges.

“By moving forward with today’s costly and disruptive strike, union leadership has made it clear they are willing to put politics above patients and the nurses they represent — despite the intervention of federal mediators and our willingness to bargain in good faith while under threat of a strike,” a Sutter Health spokesperson said. “Our attention is on providing safe, high-quality care to the patients and communities we’re honored to serve. We are confident in our ability to manage this disruption. We are hopeful CNA shares our desire to reach an agreement and enable our nurses to turn their focus back to the patients the union has asked them to walk away from.”

curtis@smdailyjournal.com

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