Dive Brief:
- The California Nurses Association organized one-day nursing strikes Thursday at five Sutter Health hospitals in northern California over proposals to cut back nurses' healthcare coverage, and what they call insufficient staffing.
- The locations included Sutter Roseville Medical Center, Sutter Tracy Community Hospital, Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital, Mills-Peninsula Health Services and Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital.
- Patient care was expected to continue as usual, Dr. Stephen Lockhart, Sutter Health chief medical officer, said Thursday. The health system was using an agency to provide the hospitals with fill-in registered nurses.
Dive Insight:
The striking nurses reported that Sutter was taking a hard line in contract negotiations earlier this week, proposing cutbacks to RNs' coverage for lab work and diagnostic procedures. They also argued that quality of care is being compromised due to staffing cuts.
"We are not willing to accept the significant healthcare cost increases being proposed by Sutter," Sandy Ralston, a recovery room RN at Sutter Auburn Faith, told the Sacramento Bee. "It's wrong to squeeze out even more profits by forcing rates on us that are so high.”
Sutter, meanwhile, countered that this was the 150th strike organized by the California Nurses Association in the past five years, that full-time Sutter RNs average $136,000 per year plus pension and benefits, and that Sutter Health hospitals meet or exceed the state's safe staffing ratios.