The troubles that plague California hospitals may have organizations elsewhere thanking their lucky stars that they aren't facing strikes (or a similar patient death due to a medical error attracting the media storm). But other hospitals would be wise to remember that, like lightning, strikes can strike anywhere.
The California nurses' strike isn't only limited to the West Coast, as it has repercussions for other states. Called the largest nurses' strike in U.S. history and hitting 33 hospitals under Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, and Children's Hospital Oakland, the union stand against management signals a broader problem between providers and the larger health systems.
With the media surrounding the California health systems and union, we almost forgot how the strike started in the first place. Among the complaints of the 23,000 striking nurses were cuts to their benefits, as well as cuts to patient services, protestors said.
Those demands spiraled into a California Nurses Association-National Nurses United strike affecting almost the entire area. Further complicating matters, reports linked the strike to a patient death at Oakland's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center when a replacement nurse administered 66-year-old Judith Ming's medication into the wrong catheter, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Tuesday. The replacement nurse was one of 500 replacements that Sutter Health called in to staff its Oakland hospital and two Berkeley campuses in absence of the striking nurses.
While the California Nurses Association said the patient death could have been avoided if Sutter had not locked out the nurses from reentering, the California Hospital Association said the union was exploiting the tragic death. The Hospital Association also rebuffed accusations that the replacement nurses were unqualified.
As an update to the news that broke this week, the temporary nurse from Advanced Clinical Employment Staffing was credentialed to provide care, according to the Chronicle article. Ming, the patient, suffered ovarian cancer and had been hospitalized since July. While some blame the patient's death on the temp nurses and Sutter, others point to the union as the culprit.
"What I can tell you is this was a very tragic, very unusual mistake," Sutter spokesperson Carolyn Kemp told the Chronicle. "There is a family, a young nurse and a hospital community all devastated by this."
Other news this week also showed us that other areas of the nation are not immune from such conflicts between nurses and hospital management.
For instance, nurses at University of Michigan Health System and leadership have been battling over a new agreement for the past six months, and the nurses aren't buying into the CEO's message that the health system is committed to competitive wages and benefits, reports AnnArbor.com.
Meanwhile, the Oregon Nurses Association and Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Ontario are stalled on reaching a contract agreement, with negotiations starting back in May, reports The Argus Observer. Nurses said that the hospital must address patient care, safety, and staffing. Saint Alphonsus-Ontario responded, saying that it offers competitive compensation and benefits, according to the article.
For better or for worse, the California strike has the attention of the country and is (or should be) a sounding alarm of other similar problems elsewhere. - Karen (@FierceHealth)