California Nurses Set One-Day Strike Over H1N1 Unreadiness

October 21, 2009 (LPAC)—Some 16,000 registered nurses (RNs) at 39 Catholic hospitals in California and Nevada will join together in a one-day strike and picket October 30, to protest poor readiness by hospitals to confront the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. The one-day strike is also an outreach to the public, in conjunction with the Nurses' contract negotiations with a Catholic hospital chain, where the swine flu situation is a big part of the dispute.

In California alone, swine flu has hospitalized over 3,000 people and killed over 200, including an RN infected on the job. Since August, the California Nurses Association (CNA) has cited as proof of unreadiness: nationwide problems with poor segregation of patients; lack of sufficient N95 masks; numerous hospitals where nurses have been infected; inadequate training for hospital staff; and punitive sick-leave policies.

The CNA became increasingly concerned after a cancer nurse (a triathlete and marathon runner) at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento died July 17 of a severe respiratory infection, pneumonia, and H1N1. The hospital is one which the nurses will strike Oct. 30. The Los Angeles times quoted a CNA spokesman saying, "We have a global pandemic of swine flu, and we need the hospitals to do a better job preparing. If the hospitals don't do a better job, they become incubators."

Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center officials released a statement Oct. 19 stating they will have enough backup staff to remain open, should nurses strike. In a statement quoted in the L.A. Times, they called the union's salary and benefit demands "unrealistic," adding, that, "Given the current economic environment and the challenges Catholic Healthcare West faces, the CNA's demands, if agreed to, would add to the ballooning cost of providing care and threaten our ability to meet our community's needs."