Nurses at the Watsonville Community Hospital are preparing to walk off the job on Thursday for a 24-hour strike. They’ve been offered a bonus, but they say the problem is a shortage of staffing and the burden that this places on nurses, even with a pay hike. And, they say, the hospital has been unresponsive to their demands by failing to make alternative suggestions and only meeting with them six times over the past nine months. The strike is intended as a wakeup call to the hospital administrators at Community Healthy Systems, the country’s biggest publicly traded hospital network.
Nurses at the Watsonville Community Hospital are preparing to walk off the job on Thursday for a 24-hour strike. They’ve been offered a bonus, but they say the problem is a shortage of staffing and the burden that this places on nurses, even with a pay hike. And, they say, the hospital has been unresponsive to their demands by failing to make alternative suggestions and only meeting with them six times over the past nine months. The strike is intended as a wakeup call to the hospital administrators at Community Healthy Systems, the country’s biggest publicly traded hospital network.
Because of the looming strike, the hospital plans to begin diverting ambulances to Dominican Hospital starting today. “We can’t have 1,000 people in the hospital if the nurses are going on strike,” says hospital spokeswoman Cindy Weigelt. She added that the hospital is planning a patient care task force to assist with any potential emergencies on the day of the strike.
This is inadequate, says Lisa Harlow of the California Nurses Association. She compares the reduction of emergency room services five days before the strike to “holding the community hostage.” Weigelt responds that the emergency room will remain open to patients who do not require hospitalization, and that a temporary workforce is in place for patients who cannot be discharged until then. Almost everyone else will be directed to Dominican, which is already preparing contingency plans. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
