Nurses Call on Kaiser to Improve Staffing to Protect Patients

Registered nurses will begin their fourth day Friday of a one-week strike at Kaiser Permanente’s flagship Los Angeles hospital, returning again to Kaiser’s Southern California Kaiser corporate headquarters in Pasadena following a huge protest there Thursday. 

Los Angeles Medical Center (Kaiser Permanente) strike schedule

Seven-day strike, through March 22, 4867 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.
Friday, March 18: Rally, 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon at Kaiser Southern California corporate offices, 393 E Walnut St., Pasadena
Monday, March 21: Rally, 12:30 p.m. on strike line, 4867 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles

The RNs, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, are seeking a contract that will improve staffing to protect patient care as well as economic gains that will promote retention of experienced RNs and boost recruitment of new nurses.

“If Kaiser is planning on using this medical center as its teaching hospital for their medical school, it is critical to improve patient care conditions especially for our region’s sickest babies and kids, end floating and provide for a fair contract for nurses,” Aisha Ealey, a neo-natal intensive care unit RN at the hospital, told reporters.

"When we are understaffed and overworked, that translates into the service that the patients get," Devika Wijesinghe said.

LAMC is the hub for specialty services such as Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation, a procedure for high-risk patients and is the regional high-risk center for young children with cancer.  Nurses are calling on Kaiser to invest in this regional specialty center and settling a fair contract with strong patient care provisions similar to what Kaiser has previously agreed in the CNA contract for 18,000 nurses in California.

Despite making over $14.4 billion in profit over the past six years, Kaiser has frozen wages for nurses at the region’s tertiary center.