SAN LEANDRO (California) – ‘Safe Staffing Saves Lives.’ ‘Retirement with Dignity.’ ‘Sutter Puts Profits Before Patients.’

These protest slogans displayed during the candlelight vigil in front of this city’s San Leandro Hospital seemed to be saying the same thing. Similarly, the issues that the 4,000-strong California Nurses Association took to the streets from March 21 to 30 against the employer, Sutter Health Corporation, were identical to those it presented in two strikes staged in the last six months.

In other words, no real progress has come to the negotiating table between the CNA and Sutter Health since the nurses first went on strike October last year. Neither party is budging from their positions.

“That’s because Sutter Health has remained insensitive to our needs, more so to the needs of patients and the communities we serve,” Zenei Cortes, one of four presidents comprising the CNA Council of Presidents, told FilAm Star.

Filipino-Americans comprise a little more than half of the total CNA membership.

Foremost among the issues that has persistently stalemated the talks and prevented burying the hatchet is the nurses’ demand for a single master contract between Sutter Health and CNA, covering all nurses working in Sutter facilities in the Bay Area – something the healthcare organization finds impractical.

Sought for comment by Star, Jonnie Banks, spokeswoman for Eden Medical Center-San Leandro campus, said: “Each hospital is unique in their needs because each operates in a different environment. Nurses are better served with individual hospital contracts because they have individual needs.”

Zenei Cortes adamantly disagrees, but points out that the disparity between Sutter hospitals stems from the dissimilarities in the operating environment – more precisely, in the socio-economic standing of the community where it operates.

She rues: “Nurses at California Pacific Medical Center are being paid less than those in St. Luke’s Hospital which is located in a depressed section of San Francisco. Likewise, those at the San Leandro facility get less because the city is not as affluent as, say, Burlingame where Peninsula Medical Center operates.”

Cortes says she cannot understand why Sutter Health facilities, all operating under one umbrella, cannot produce a blanket contract.
“Why and how has Kaiser been able to do it?” she wondered.

As the nurses struck, there was no word that Sutter would reconsider its decision last year to shut down St. Luke’s Hospital.

Speaking before the crowd of nurses that picketed the hospital early on during the 10-day strike, California Senator Leland Yee said: “Sutter Health made $587 million in profits in 2006 alone. Their margin of profit makes Sutter’s desire to close less profitable hospitals a classic case of putting profit before patients. Sutter can do better in our community and for our community in 2008 than closing hospitals.”

But in San Leandro Hospital, which is also rumored to be in the Sutter Health hit list, it appears the verbal tug-of-war is a never-ending case of ‘he said, she said.’

Melinda Markowitz, one of four presidents of the CNA council, is convinced that Sutter Health is moving forward as well with its plan to close down the San Leandro facility.

“So this community now has to go to either Castro Valley or Hayward for their medical and healthcare needs,” she said.

Banks countered with a recitation of the investments Sutter Health has plowed back to San Leandro Hospital. Among others, these consist of the purchase of ‘Zero Lift’- equipment used to lift incapacitated and geriatric patients that costs thousands of dollars; installation of a new program at the emergency room called ‘Fastrack;’ and, sometime this month, purchase of a $2-million state-of-the-art CAT Scan.

She also emphasized that over the next two years Sutter Health will be infusing $20 million for operational and capital expenditures.

“Clearly, these initiatives indicate that closing San Leandro Hospital is not the direction Sutter Health is taking,” Banks pointed out.

In articulating the company’s position, Banks also took exception to CNA’s claim that Sutter Health is not meeting state-mandated staff ratios as Markowitz claims.

“Sutter facilities need to hire additional relief nurses so they can take their breaks properly and on time to avoid fatigue that could impair the quality of care they give patients,” Markowitz said.

“The nurses are standing up against the lack of safe staffing during meals and breaks that put patients at risk,” Yee added. “Ratios must be in effect at all times, to protect patients at all times.”

“We have hired 16 relief nurses since October,” Banks stressed. “There is no way a big company like Sutter Health would be so irresponsible as to break state laws on staffing ratios.”

Banks likewise insisted that Sutter Health has come across with the other demands.

An 18 percent increase in pay that Sutter Health is set to implement over the next four years, she said, will give nurses total average yearly earnings of $120,000. Health care benefits extend to the nurses’ families, and a paid retirement plan has always been in place.

At press time, word is afloat that the nurses are planning on yet another strike in the weeks ahead. It does seem that as the stalemate between Sutter Health and CNA continues, neither sees even the faintest light at the end of the tunnel.

- Revised and reprinted from the Fil-Am Star