Nurses across Southern California are partaking in a “National Day of Action” to request more protections for patients and themselves, particularly as COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are flooding once more.
At Glendale Memorial Hospital, nurses put down the patient charts and picked up pickets and signs that said, “Patients First,” “Patients Over Profits,” and “Safe Staffing Now.” Labor groups representing nurses say protests will also take place at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center in West Los Angeles, and in San Bernardino at Community Hospital of San Bernardino and St. Bernardine Medical Center.
“UC nurses are focused on giving the best expectations of care to our patients,” David Yamada, an enlisted nurture at UCLA Medical Center, said in a proclamation. “Simultaneously, we have needed to ceaselessly fight university management for the safe staffing, work environment protections, PPE, and admittance to testing that we merit.”
National Nurses United says its members are being compelled to reuse individual protective gear and are attempting to protect themselves and their patients.
“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the disappointments of our alleged health care framework and uncovered more unmistakably than any other time in recent memory that our managers put benefits over patients’ and nurses’ health and safety,” NNU president Deborah Burger said in an explanation.