News
Verdugo Hills Hospital nurses bring their case to COO
Disgruntled employees from USC-Verdugo Hills Hospital on Wednesday marched to the office of the hospital’s chief operating officer, Paul Czajka, where they delivered a community petition bearing as many as 1,300 signatures collected in Glendale, Montrose and La Cañada.
“We’re coming to the community because nurses have already had delegations, rallies and petitions but, unfortunately, they have fallen on deaf ears,” said Dinorah Williams, labor representative with the California Nurses Assn., on Tuesday.
Williams said at least 46 nurses and directors have resigned since the acquisition, including 16 labor-and-delivery nurses and 11 nurses from intensive care unit. Those staffing shortages are being filled with temporary and costly traveler nurses, who hail from far-flung agencies, require a lot of training and are unfamiliar with the hospital’s basic policies and procedures, she said.
In a statement issued Wednesday, chief nurse administrator Janet Brooks said turnover at the facility was 9.5% — no higher than other Southern California community hospitals.
“USC-Verdugo Hills Hospital has been and remains a desirable place to work,” Brooks stated. “It enjoys the loyalty and support of many long-term employees, including registered nurses.”
The hospital’s nurses have been in contract negotiations with administrators since June, but employees claim their complaints are not about salaries, but unsafe conditions and patient care.
Gurneys often fail to lock and must be held in place manually when patients sit on them, said Sandra Mulcahey, who’s worked in the Foothills facility for 29 years. Sheets are threadbare and torn, and nurses are turning to Google searches to learn about procedures before they assist physicians, because the competencies are not there.
“I’ve worked through three administrative changes, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” Mulcahey said. “(USC) promised they were going to invest in standards of patient care. They made all these promises and really they haven’t lived up to them.”
Brooks said the hospital received solid marks in recent customer satisfaction surveys, including an 85th percentile ranking for responsiveness to patient needs and 92nd percentile rank for cleanliness.
“We continue to negotiate in good faith with the California Nurses Assn. and hope that all issues can be worked out at the bargaining table,” Brooks said in the statement.
Hoping to spread the word about what they call “deplorable” working conditions at the hospital, a group of nurses and labor representatives brought their case Monday to the La Cañada Flintridge City Council.
Two nurses and one union representative from the California Nurses Assn. addressed the council in public comment, sharing details of what they called a “mass exodus” of staff that has occurred since USC’s Keck Medical Center acquired Verdugo Hills hospital in 2013.
Mulcahey told the council there’s a big disparity between standards of care at their local hospital and others operated by USC.
“They still tell us we’re a small community hospital and we are not part of Keck or USC, yet they promote that on TV, they promote that on handouts they put out through the community and what they tell you,” Mulcahey said.
Williams maintained the group’s recent petitions, rallies and public appeals like the one made in La Cañada Monday are not CNA negotiating tactics.
“We want the same standards for our patients and the same standards they use to recruit and retain nurses at Keck and at Norris,” she said. “That is what this fight has been about.”
Source: