Nurses rallied outside Antelope Valley Medical Center early Thursday, Dec. 4, claiming chronic short-staffing has left them overworked and undermined patient care.
The employees, which number nearly 900 at the Lancaster hospital, are represented by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU). Their contract will expire in May and bargaining sessions are expected to begin later this month.
They allege management is failing to comply with California’s minimum nurse-to-patient ratios and said the hospital has suspended one nurse and threatened to fire five others for speaking out on the issue.
Union spokeswoman Courtney Hayes cited Antelope Valley’s Progressive Care Unit as an example.
“Progressive care is one step below ICU and California mandates that the nurse-to-patient ratio be one nurse for every three patients,” she said. “But on three occasions over the last three months nurses have had to take care of four patients.”
That might not sound like a big change, but Hayes said it has a heavy impact on both nurses and patients.
“Having one more patient means more charting, more IVs and more ventilators to monitor,” she said. “So they don’t have as much time to take care of patients. The charting alone could add another four hours of work.”
Representatives with Antelope Valley Medical Center could not be reached for comment.
Kellie Currie, a nurse in the hospital’s Progressive Care Unit, was suspended Dec. 23 when she refused to take on four patients.
“I went to administration and said I didn’t feel safe providing care to four patients,” the 36-year-old Lancaster resident said. “They said if I continued to refuse I would be terminated. So you have to choose between your livelhood and nursing license … or patient safety.”
The union said nurses have filed documentation known as assignment despite objection forms (ADOs) nearly every day since October to highlight unsafe staffing levels. CNA has also filed two complaints with the California Department of Public Health concerning the issue.
Mark Mosesian, an RN in the emergency room, said work conditions at Antelope Valley are “dire.”
“There are nights when we only have six RNs in the ER and more than 100 patients seeking care,” Mosesian said in a statement. “With the floors so understaffed, we are forced to hold patients in the hallways or make them wait hours for care.”
Cindy Gillison, a nurse and RN educator, said the hospital should be investing in nurses, rather than intimidating them into taking unsafe assignments that exceed state mandated ratios.
“The hospital is threatening to fire up to six nurses who stood up for patients by demanding safe staffing,” she said. “This would put our community at even greater risk.”
Currie is confident she’ll get her job back if she’s terminated.
“I’m pretty well versed in California labor law,” she said. “I just don’t see that they have grounds to terminate me. And I have no intention of abandoning patients.”
