Via the California Nurses Association website: Major Nurses Strike and Picket Looms October 30 As RNs to Protest Hospital Gaps in Swine Flu Safety. Excerpt from a long and alarming media release:
As many as 16,000 registered nurses from three large Catholic hospital chains in California and Nevada will join a one-day strike and picket October 30, as RNs step up the protest over poor readiness by many hospitals to confront the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) announced today.
The strike will affect hospitals across California from San Bernardino and Long Beach in the south to Eureka and Redding in the north, and include major facilities in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Bakersfield, Stockton, and the Central Coast.
Additionally, nurses will picket major facilities in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada.
Protecting nurses, patients and families in the center of the pandemic storm Central to the nurses' walkout is ongoing concern over the failure of the hospital chains to assure adequate safety precautions for patients, their families, nurses, and other healthcare employees in the wake of the escalating H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic.
In particular, the RNs say, many hospitals continue to do a poor job at isolating patients with H1N1 symptoms and other steps to limit contagion, or provide sufficient fit-tested N95 respirators and other protective gear for healthcare workers and patients.
