RNs say hospital administration is failing to meet its own staffing standards

Registered nurses at Dignity Health Community Hospital in San Bernardino, Calif., will hold an informational picket on Thursday, March 28, to protest the administration’s refusal to address their deep concerns about unsafe staffing, announced California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU).

Nurses have attempted to address their serious concerns about patient safety and safe staffing in meetings with the hospital’s chief nursing officer. Hospital management has consistently failed to adhere to its own safe staffing standards – including a lack of ancillary staff to support nurses – resulting in delays in care, patients getting pressure sores, and increased workplace violence.

“Community Hospital is continually short-staffed, putting patients’ safety at risk and forcing nurses to work in unsafe conditions,” said Virginia Licerio, RN in the post-partum unit. “Community Hospital is accepting more patients than it can safely take care of. It’s time Dignity Health invest in staffing and prioritize safe patient care.”

• Who:    Registered nurses at Dignity Health Community Hospital
• What:   Informational picket protesting unsafe staffing
• When:  Thursday, March 28, 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
• Where: Dignity Health Community Hospital, 1805 Medical Center Dr., San Bernardino, CA 92411

“Our community deserves better than Dignity’s unsafe practices,” said Lidya Sihotang, RN in the neurological care unit. “A health care corporation as well-resourced as Dignity Health should provide top-of-the-line patient care. Instead, you will find nurses stretched to their limits with inadequate resources. We call on Dignity Health to listen to our demands for increased safety standards and protect the patients and the nurses who take care of them. Dignity Health can do better.”

CNA represents more than 450 nurses at Dignity Health Community Hospital.

California Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the nation with 100,000 members in more than 200 facilities throughout California and nearly 225,000 RNs nationwide.