Nurses To Strike At Desert Regional Medical Center

PALM SPRINGS, CA — Registered nurses from Desert Regional Medical Center will participate in a one-day strike in solidarity with RNs at other Tenet facilities Friday.

The picketers, who are members of the California Nurses Association, are demanding that management expand nursing staff at hospitals statewide. They say the staff shortages are stretching employees thin, which can increases the chance of medical errors and other negative consequences for patients and employees.

The association said that information provided by Tenet showed the company paid out a total of nearly $8 million dollars in penalty pay to RNs from 2016 to 2018 for more than 140,000 missed meal breaks in the eight California hospitals holding the picket.

The strike was scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. and go until 6:59 a.m. Saturday.

A rally outside the Desert Regional Medical Center campus is planned for noon.

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--City News Service