RNs Reject Restructuring Scheme that Puts Patients At Risk

Registered nurses at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (SVMH) will hold a one-day strike beginning May 27 to protest management's insistence on pursuing a restructuring plan that would drastically reduce bedside nursing staff and severely undermine the patient advocacy role of nurses in the hospital.

What: RNs One-day strike at SVMH
When: Strike begins Weds. May 27, 7 a.m., and ends 6:59 am May 28
Where: Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, 450 E Romie Lane, Salinas, CA 93901

"We want to send a clear message that we cannot accept the restructuring plan because it strikes at the beating heart of patient care," said Jeanne Hyashi RN, Post Anthesia Care Unit. "It's past time for management to accept the fact finder’s recommendations and withdraw their proposal to eliminate charge nurses so that we can move towards settlement."

"The restructuring plan is a recipe for poor patient outcomes," said Molly McCarty, RN, Float Pool. "Quality care requires that every unit on every shift has a charge nurse, an RN with vast clinical experience who is accountable first and foremost to the patients. That's how you safeguard patient care, not by creating a new tier of administrators who are focused on budgetary concerns and wholly unaccountable to patients."

Nurses voted to authorize a strike in December 2014 and since that time have participated in further bargaining, mediation, a "cooling off" period, and agreed upon the appointment of a neutral third party who released a fact-finding report last month. While, the report endorsed many of the central issues raised by the RNs on patient care delivery, including maintaining the charge nurse role, management has refused to withdraw their proposals to eliminate charge nurses and other nursing positions.

The charge nurse plays several key roles in a hospital unit, first as a kind of air-traffic controller, who assigns the most appropriate nurse to each patient based on their condition, intervenes in emergencies and is available to assist bedside RNs with hands on care as needed and plays a role as clinical mentor to new nurses. The restructuring scheme also proposes to create a new tier of management that would provide no hands-on direct patient care.

Hospital management is attempting to make drastic cuts to bedside nurses and reduce patient care despite making nearly $50 million dollars in profits in the last two fiscal years according to Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital’s own financial statements. In the same period some senior executives received pay increases.