National Nurses United

12 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5 C A L I F O R N I A N U R S E "The nursing policy says covering an LVN's patient is just a time-limited task –- just do a quickie assessment and you're done," says Jan Rodolfo, an oncology RN with Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. "But every patient deserves an RN — that's a patient's legal right." Given time constraints, Rodolfo says that RNs are incredibly conflicted about which patients to give pri- ority, hoping that they are getting enough information about who is sickest to crisis manage their shift. "The problem is, an RN needs to be told there's a crisis in order to deal with it. But with the Sutter model of care, that could easily fail to occur," said Corinne Comer, CNA acute care direc- tor. Other Sutter RNs describe it as a two-tiered system for the patients: Will you end up with an RN or LVN? Other big issues include Sutter's proposals to cut back retiree health benefits that would weaken retirement security, Sutter's fail- ure to improve pension benefits, and Sutter's prioritization of trav- eler RNs for shifts over regular staff RNs. "Sutter maintains the position that travelers should be able to work their contracts, and if that exhausts extra shifts, or short-hour or per diem work, so be it," said Comer. "But we say, No way! This is a key job security issue." All of these shortcomings boil down to riskier patient care, say Sutter RNs. As one example, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, a major facility in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, was put on notice last year by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations that it was on track to lose its accred- itation, a rare move by an agency that routinely approves almost all facilities it reviews. The hospital averted an outright denial in August, but still has only attained conditional accreditation sta- tus, a couple rungs below full accreditation. —Staff Report A s of press time, the bargaining situation with Sutter Health over contracts covering some 3,200 RNs at five hospitals was so fluid that negotiators were still not sure whether the contract would be settled or nurses would go out on strike. Affected facilities include Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Sutter Solano, Sutter Eden, California Pacific Medical Center, and St. Luke's. For the first time, RN bargaining teams are scheduled to meet with all Sutter facility management teams under one roof on Aug. 15 and 16. Those meetings will be determinative. Talks had reached a wall in late July but turned serious again after Sutter RN negotiators prepared to announce a deadline for an open-ended strike of the mainly Bay Area facilities. RNs post- poned declaration of a strike at the last minute to see what results this new round of bargaining would bring. Nurses and other health- care workers represented by UHW-SEIU Local 250 planned a mass walk-out, joined by other unions striking in sympathy with the RNs and bringing enormous pressure on Sutter to respond to RN demands. Perhaps the most contentious issue for Sutter RNs is the hospital corporation's refusal to guarantee in the contract the same minimum RN staffing levels required by law, and to reverse the dangerous model of care Sutter implemented. The corpora- tion calls this model "complying with the ratios." According to the RNs, Sutter is notorious for using RNs and LVNs interchange- ably, forcing LVNs to work independently, and saddling RNs with all the legal liability. Sutter asserts that staffing 50 percent with RNs and 50 percent with LVNs is acceptable. But what happens is the RN gets assigned five patients and has to cover the LVN's patients too, whether the LVN has two or five. Standoff with Sutter Bargaining to continue, but can issues be resolved? Bargaining Update

• Cover