Two Northern California RNs Return from Disaster Relief Mission to Philippines as NNU Effort Goes On

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Two Northern California registered are returning from a medical relief mission to a typhoon-ravaged region of the Philippines, even as more RNs this week left to continue a volunteer effort sponsored by the Registered Nurse Response Network of National Nurses United. Jane Sandoval, an RN community activist who works at St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco, returns tonight. Lyn Tirona, a Kaiser Sacramento RN, returned earlier this week. Both spent about two weeks on the ground, mostly on Panay, an island in the direct path of the storm.
California Nurses Association
Dec 13, 2013

Nurses picket outside Sutter Tracy

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About two-dozen nurses who work at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital held what they called an “informational picket” outside the medical center, Thursday, Dec. 12. The employees say they were protesting hospital management’s unwillingness to bargain in their contract negotiations with the California Nurses Association, which represents the nurses.
Tracy Press

Texas’ Other Death Penalty

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The first patient who called me “doctor” died a few winters ago. I met him at the St. Vincent’s Student-Run Free Clinic on Galveston Island. I was a first-year medical student then, and the disease in his body baffled me. His belly was swollen, his eyes were yellow and his blood tests were all awry. It hurt when he swallowed and his urine stank.
Texas Observer

Registered nurses vote to unionize at Providence Hospital in D.C.

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Providence becomes the seventh D.C. hospital with nurses organized under the banner of National Nurses United, a federation of nurses unions. Organizers hope that bringing Providence’s roughly 400 RNs into the fold will help D.C. Council legislation that would mandate certain nurse staffing levels in city hospitals. That legislation is languishing amid fierce lobbying by hospital officials, who contend that “staffing ratios” increase costs without improving patient care.
The Washington Post

Community Hospital RNs cite patient safety concerns at protest

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Ellen Mockridge, a registered nurse at Community Hospital Long Beach for 30 years, said her life was put at risk because there are not enough nurses on staff. Once, Mockridge said she went to check on a patient with AIDS who was in an isolation room. Because there wasn’t another nurse to assist her, Mockridge said she was stuck with a needle and had to take off work for three months. She also had to take medication that she said compromised her immune system and prevented her from taking her arthritis medicine.
Orange County Register

Nurses Postpone Dignity Health Protests Friday as Dignity Requests Talks to Resolve Dispute

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Candelight rallies planned at Dignity Health hospitals across California and Nevada this Friday to protest a threatened rollback in retirement benefits were put on hold late Wednesday after company officials agreed to meet over any potential changes in the Dignity retiree health plan.
California Nurses Association/National Nurses United
Dec 11, 2013

Nurses Protest Sutter Tracy Community Hospital's Refusal To Bargain in Good Faith

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Registered Nurses at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital (STCH) will hold an informational picket and rally on Thursday to protest management's continued unwillingness to take serious action at the bargaining table. Sutter Tracy RNs held a candlelight vigil two weeks ago to alert the public to conditions in the hospital and to unacceptable positions by management at the bargaining table.
California Nurses Association
Dec 11, 2013

Hospital Fever - Healthcare now based on unknowns

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In anticipation of the Affordable Care Act, hospitals and insurance companies nationwide have begun to cut back services. In California, Kaiser nurses recently reported that "over the last year, Kaiser has been making it harder for patients to be admitted for hospital care when sick or injured, and is sending patients home when they should still be under hospital care" (National Nurses United, Oct. 2013).
Bohemian.com

National Nurses Statement on Federal Budget Deal

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National Nurses United, the nation’s largest organization of registered nurses, today expressed dismay and alarm over the federal budget deal announced yesterday, saying it will perpetuate the harmful effects of austerity, especially with so many in Main Street communities continuing to feel the painful effects of the Great Recession caused by Wall Street speculation.
Dec 11, 2013

Today-Keep Manteca Safe Committee Welcomes “Town Hall on Cuts & Closures at Kaiser-Manteca Medical

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The seniors and nurses of the Keep Manteca Safe Committee are applauding the announcement by the California Alliance for Retired Americans that the senior advocacy group will host the “Town Hall on Cuts & Closures at Kaiser-Manteca Medical Center” today, Dec. 11th, from 1-3 p.m., at the Manteca Transit Center, Moffat Blvd. at S. Main St. “We welcome the opportunity to be heard,” said committee member Jackie Rudy, a resident of the Woodbridge by Del Webb retirement community in Manteca. “These cuts and closures are causing real harm to seniors and people throughout the area.”
California Nurses Association
Dec 11, 2013