Nurses from Harbor-UCLA Medical Center provided their first-hand accounts of patient safety violations taking place throughout the County and illustrated how systemic short-staffing hinders nurses' ability to deliver quality care.   

  said Sandra Friend, a 16-year RN at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.  "It's not safe and I cannot deliver my best quality care with so many patients."

"In the ER, our patient load is unknown. Anything can come in through our doors", said Arcelia Lopez, RN at Harbor UCLA's Emergency Room. "We need more staff, yet per diem nurses are getting cancelled leaving us short staffed.  Everyday we're short one or two nurses."

Throughout RN contract negotiations, we have presented solutions to improve healthcare delivery, to keep L.A. County healthy and manage our costs.  Yet County management has been resistant to giving serious consideration to our ideas.

"We want to work with the County to prevent patient safety complaints," said Al Thompson, RN and Chair of the RN Bargaining Team, to the Supervisors. "Listen to our solutions and partner with us."

Next steps: Our fight to put patients first is not over. As our RN bargaining team returns to negotiations we will be calling on nurses at the worksite to support our actions for patient safety and RN professional concerns. For more information please contact Katarina del Valle Thompson at (213) 738-8420 or email katarina.thompson@seiu721.org.