Emergency Room RNs at HCA’s Good Samaritan Hospital to protest unsafe patient conditions as hospital management refuses to staff ER appropriately

Registered nurses at HCA’s Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, Calif., will hold a rally on Monday, March 24, at 4 p.m. to highlight their patient safety concerns, including short-staffing, unsafe conditions for patients, lack of support staff, and the lack of a dedicated management team in the emergency room. Nurses at Good Samaritan are represented by California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU).

“The volume of patients in our ER is extremely high, largely due to HCA cutting vital services at Regional Medical Center nearby,” said Maria Luisa Diaz, RN in the Good Samaritan emergency room since 2005. “We lack resources to handle HCA’s self-inflicted problem, which causes massive safety issues for patients. The ER is overcrowded, but management refuses to provide adequate staffing, even though there are nurses available and willing to work.”

“As usual, HCA is putting profits over patients, and nurses are ringing alarm bells,” Luisa Diaz added. “When we are forced to provide care to patients in a waiting room, it is extremely dangerous and unfair to those seeking help. HCA can and should do better for our community.”

Who: RNs at HCA Good Samaritan Hospital
What: Rally for patient safety
When: Monday, March 24, at 4 p.m.
Where: 2425 Samaritan Dr., San Jose, Calif.; on the sidewalk on Samaritan Dr. by the emergency room entrance

“My family has worked in this hospital for generations,” said Kylie Garcia, RN in the emergency department and a third-generation nurse at Good Samaritan. “Sadly, I've watched our hospitals deteriorate under HCA's management to a new low. As nurses, we do everything we can for our patients. But HCA just refuses to work with us to guarantee safe patient care.”

“Working for HCA, I witnessed the hospital management constantly doing things to jeopardize patient safety in order to make more profit,” Garcia added. “This culture is disheartening and deeply upsetting, and it weighs heavily on my heart and mental state to walk into ER every shift when I don’t know what to expect and what kind of dangerous situations I will be forced to deal with, which could have been avoided if HCA put patients first.” 

CNA represents more than 900 registered nurses at HCA’s Good Samaritan Hospital.

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