Eden Medical Center: "Nurses' Strike Won't Affect Patients"

Despite a nurses' strike affecting 34 hospitals in northern and central California this week, patients at in Castro Valley will not be affected because the hospital has replacements on hand, a hospital spokesperson said.

More than 23,000 nurses are expected to strike this Thursday at Children’s Hospital as well as many Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health hospitals.

Eden Medical Center expects its 425 registered nurses to walk off the job at 7 a.m. on strike day, but officials said there will be no stoppage of care at the center.

Cindy Dove, Eden’s marketing and communications manager said that while the nurses' union is planning only a one-day walkout, the hospital will shut them out for five days. That's due to arrangements with the company through which replacement nurses are hired, she said.

“We were given notice by the nurses union—a 10-day notice—that the strike is starting this Thursday at 7 a.m.," said Dove, "and it’s expected to end on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 7 a.m. Obviously we need to hire replacement nurses while our nurses are on strike and the company we work for requires five days. That’s the requirement every time this happens, so they know this is going to happen. This is not unusual.”

The California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, the strike's organizers, said they are responding to “Sutter’s attack on RN patient advocacy rights, big cuts in nurses’ healthcare, and to support Kaiser co-workers.”

On its website, the CNA says that Sutter Health is trying to remove the registered nurses' paid sick days, to cut their heath care benefits and to lower newly hired registered nurses' wages by $20 an hour.

Sutter Health officials say the contract concessions are necessary given the current economic climate.

Sutter’s website says that pay for registered nurses at Sutter averages $136,000 a year plus full health benefits, while a nurse who retires at age 55 after 22 years with Sutter Health typically receives $7,000 a month in pension benefits.

“The economy has been something everyone has struggled with—hospitals are no exception,” said Dove. “We’re having to really watch our expenses and make sure that our services are accessible and affordable to our community. We value our nurses [but] I think that, in light of [an] economy where other workers have made concessions, we do think what we’re asking is fair.”

Nurses, however, claim that Sutter is taking advantage of a poor economic climate to cut patient services and employee benefits to ensure more profit.

Despite the economy, the CNA website says, Sutter has earned more than $3.7 billion in profit over the last six years.

Michele Ross, an R.N. at Eden Medical Center for five years, said that Sutter Health has made regular cuts in patient services while giving raises to its executives.

Ross said that the with the new construction at Eden Medical Center, the hospital has fewer beds and has downgraded its nursery from a Level 2 facility to a Level 1, which limits the care they can give newborns.

She said that the emergency center is sometimes overrun with patients, leaving people waiting in the halls for extended periods of time before receiving care.  

“This isn’t an economic matter,” said Ross. “The corporation we work for is consistently cutting patient care where it’s needed most. This is all about the patients, not our salary.”