Citing concern over safe staffing issues, St. Joseph’s Medical Center (SJMC), registered nurses will hold an informational picket on Friday, June 5, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United announced today. According to SJMC nurses, the Emergency Department and other hospital units are experiencing systemic levels of unsafe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, an issue that nurses, backed by countless studies, say puts patients’ lives at risk.

What:            SJMC nurses and community members hold informational picket
When:           Friday, June 5; 8 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Where:          St. Joseph’s Medical Center, 1800 N California, Stockton, CA
 
SJMC’s Emergency Department (ED) has seen a rapid increase in patient volume in recent years, nurses note. An October, 2014 average of 150 patients per day had grown to a January, 2015 average of 195 patients per day. Yet RNs say that hospital management has failed to address this influx with a staffing plan that keeps to statewide mandatory ratios and takes into account the acuity (severity of illness) of patients.
 
A recent study by the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing showed that for each additional patient per nurse on medical–surgical units beyond the baseline number, there was a 4 percent decrease in the odds of survival.

Outside of the ED, nurses say management has drastically cut necessary support staff and failed to replace them, leaving nurses overwhelmed. Additionally, nurses point out that breaks and mealtimes are often nearly impossible, due to the staffing crisis, and a “buddy system” of one nurse covering another during necessary meal and rest breaks means a double patient load for the covering nurse.

“We, the RNs, are here asking for the management to hear us,” says Zen Quebral, an RN with SJMC for 29 years. “We are asking for support staff to help with the care. We are asking for break relief so that there is another RN assigned to provide care for the patients, instead of having another RN ‘watch’ his/her patients for the break or mealtime. We are demanding safe patient care and safe working conditions.”
 
SJMC nurses say that patient safety is paramount. Retention of the most experienced staff is key to providing that, and RNs say that the hospital’s poor working conditions are driving away the kind of longtime, highly skilled nurses that patients in the community deserve.
 
“There has been a recent exodus of RNs from here. Many more, some with 10 to 15 years of service, are talking about leaving SJMC unless the working conditions change,” says Quebral, who hopes the informational picket on Friday will draw attention to these issues.
 
“I'm compelled to bring light to the unsafe working conditions,” Quebral says. “Our nurses are here to speak up for the patients, for the people of the community. We will raise our voices until, in the name of patient safety, management listens to our call for change.”