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Nurses say Watsonville hospital promotes ‘culture of fear’
WATSONVILLE >> Nurses at Watsonville Community Hospital allege their employer maintains illegal nurse-to-patient ratios as defined by California law, a practice they say endangers the welfare of patients.
“I witness nurses working back-to-back and 16-hour shifts,” said Roseann Farris, a critical care registered nurse at Watsonville Community Hospital. “In the Critical Care Unit where I work, the hospital’s core staffing requires that we have four nurses available for every shift; but there are times we have had only one or two.”
Watsonville Community Hospital officials deny this is the case.
Dozens of nurses descended on the City Council chamber Tuesday to urge council members to adopt a resolution regarding safe staffing levels at Watsonville Community Hospital. The nurses also described a company culture of fear, which disciplines and even terminates those who formally address the understaffing issues.
Cindy Weigelt, Watsonville Community Hospital’s marketing director, responded by e-mail.
“We have not seen the proposed resolution if one has been made,” Weigelt wrote Tuesday. “Watsonville Community Hospital adheres to all state requirements with regard to patient-nurse staffing.”
In August, Watsonville Community Hospital became part of the Quorum Health Corp., a new subsidiary of Community Health Systems, and the largest provider of non-urban acute care in the country. Just prior to the change, most managers were let go and replaced by interim managers, according to California Nurses Association labor representative Teresa Mack.
Nurses also allege the new hospital management refuses to maintain safe staffing levels or accept Assignment Despite Objection forms, which nurses use to document unsafe patient care conditions.
Mack said Watsonville Community Hospital has experienced a 43 percent increase in discipline in the last nine months.
“We are not going to allow this corporation to brazenly break the law and attempt to intimidate us with retaliatory measures,” she said. “These nurses are everyday heroes.”
Mack said the nurses requested a public statement from City Council as an official show of support.
Mayor Nancy Bilicich sits on the Watsonville Community Hospital board of directors.
“I am in support of nurses and recognize how hard the job they do is,” she said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Jennifer Holm, a pediatric nurse at Watsonville Community Hospital since 2005, said her colleagues are dangerously overworked and scared of reprisals.
“I have nurses crying in the break rooms and wanting to give up,” she said.
The City Council will decide whether or not to adopt the nurses’ resolution in the coming weeks.
Representatives from Quorum Health and Community Health Systems were not immediately available for comment.'