Nurses

Nurses in Alberta province, who struck illegally for 19 days in January and February, have voted overwhelmingly to accept an 8% pay raise over 27 months, the union said Wednesday. The United Nurses of Alberta, with 11,700 members at over 100 Alberta hospitals, said 83% had voted to accept the new contract. The nurses walked off the job on Jan. 26, defying a provincial law that bans essential employees from striking. They decided to return to work Feb.

California--the land of managed health care--fared poorly in a recent nationwide survey of nurses on patient care. The survey of more than 7,000 registered nurses nationwide found that those in California reported their greatest concerns over declines in continuity of care and increases in patient and family complaints. Results were published in last month's issue of the American Journal of Nursing.

Registered nurses who struck six major hospitals in San Francisco and Daly City voted to accept a contract offer and return to work Wednesday, officials said. The strikers voted by a 77-23 margin to accept a 21% pay increase over 34 months, the California Nurses Assn. said, and will end their 26-day walkout. Slightly over half the 2,200 strikers cast ballots, the association said.

Rejection of a proposed wage increase by a 2-1 vote kept striking nurses on picket lines for the 25th day at six major private hospitals in San Francisco. The hospitals functioned with the help of some nurses brought in from other cities and other replacements, but the range of care was restricted. Members of the California Nurses Assn.

Re "Nurses Fired for Denying Patient Care," April 22. As a retired nurse, I am appalled by the abrupt firing (without any due process) of four emergency room nurses at Community Memorial Hospital. If executive director Michael Bakst spent less of the hospital's funds on frivolous lawsuits directed against the Ventura County Medical Center he would have ample money to properly pay the nurses, who are largely responsible for Community Memorial's excellent reputation. Nurses are highly educated professionals, not the administrator's personal slaves.

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center was forced to divert ambulances away from its emergency room Friday after all 13 of its emergency room nurses called in sick, officials said. The one-day sickout, which union leaders said was organized by the nurses, reflects labor unrest at a county hospital that saw 130 doctors and other health workers dismissed Monday as a cost-cutting measure.

Striking nurses and hospital officials are scheduled to meet this week, the first talks since 1,730 registered nurses walked out of Stanford Medical Center and Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital on June 7. Two meetings are scheduled, although neither is considered an official negotiating session. The first meeting, scheduled for today, was arranged by lawyers for the two sides.

Nearly all the registered nurses at two Silicon Valley hospitals walked off the job Wednesday in hopes of higher pay. Officials at Stanford Medical Center and Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital brought in about 500 nurses to replace the 1,730 on strike and said they would turn away patients before compromising care. Both sides said they hoped for a quick end to the dispute. "But we're in this for the long haul, if that's what's necessary," union spokeswoman Kim Griffin said.

Each time I see the television ad depicting nurses and physicians thanking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for relaxing nurse staffing levels at California hospitals, I am flabbergasted. I am a registered nurse and neither I nor my co-workers support relaxing nurse staffing levels. In "Nurses Decry News TV Spot" (Dec. 7), Jan Emerson, spokeswoman for the California Healthcare Assn., said: "The labor unions have been fear-mongering. They've been telling the public that these changes are going to jeopardize patient care, and that's absolutely a fallacy."

Though the hospital industry has insisted it was all but financially impossible to meet the state's strict nurse-to-patient ratios, a number of hospitals have been able to do it without breaking their budgets. About 36% of the hospitals inspected by the state's Department of Health Services passed their surveys, according to a Times review of state data from the first 10 months of last year. That's more than the 15% compliance rate that the California Healthcare Assn.