Thousands of nurses who went on strike at the University of Chicago Medical Center were turned away from hospitals as they attempted to return to work on Saturday. On Friday, 2,200 University of Chicago nurses traded in their scrubs for picket signs.
Talks broke down between the University of Chicago Medical Center and the union representing about 2,200 nurses Wednesday night – setting the stage for a one-day strike, though the hospital will keep striking nurses off the job for five days.
More than 6,500 nurses in California, Arizona, Florida, and Illinois are expected to participate in a 24-hour strike on Friday. Nurses employed by Tenet Healthcare and the University of Chicago Medical Center are advocating better recruitment and retention of experienced nurses as well as better nurse-to-patient ratios.
Registered nurses picketed outside Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center on Wednesday to raise awareness about “safe patient staffing” at the hospital. The National Nurses Organizing Committee, an affiliate of the powerful National Nurses United union, announced the two-hour demonstration in a Tuesday release that said the nurses are still negotiating a new contract meant to boost working conditions and nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.
The threat of a nurses strike at the University of Chicago Medical Center prompted action over the weekend. Hundreds of patients, some criticality ill, were transferred from the University of Chicago Medical Center and Comer Children’s to other facilities.
Advocates warn that people who need nursing care may increasingly be sent far away from San Francisco in a developing shortage of affordable nursing home beds linked in part to the cost of doing business and the cost of living in the Bay Area. Berenice Palmer shows me her room at the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living, formerly known as the Jewish Home.