RNs demand CommonSpirit Health rescind layoff notices

Registered nurses will hold an informational picket on Thursday, July 16 in Bakersfield, Calif., to protest proposed health care staffing reductions and service cuts at CommonSpirit Health’s Dignity Health Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and Dignity Health Mercy Hospitals (Downtown and Southwest) that will jeopardize patient care. Nurses are demanding that CommonSpirit immediately rescind all layoff notices and work with nurses to ensure safe staffing according to patient acuity. 

CommonSpirit, the parent company of Dignity Health, informed several dozen health care workers, including registered nurses and licensed vocational nurses, that layoffs are set to take effect by August 3, 2026. Nurses say the loss of this critical health care staff will lead to delays in care and jeopardize patient safety.

“When hospitals cut nurses and other health workers, patient care suffers,” said Sandy Reding, RN at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and president of CNA. “The work doesn’t disappear, it gets pushed onto fewer caregivers. Medications are delayed, call lights will go unanswered, and wait times in the ER will increase. Every minute we spend doing work that was once handled by educators, unit secretaries, licensed vocational nurses, or other support staff is time taken away from direct patient care.  Our patients deserve better, and that’s why we are speaking out.” 

Who: Registered nurses as CommonSpirit’s Bakersfield Memorial Hospital,  Mercy Hospital Downtown, and Mercy Hospital Southwest
What: Informational picket
When: Thursday, July 16 6- 9 a.m.  
Where: Mercy Hospital Downtown
2215 Truxtun Ave., Bakersfield, Calif.
Picket will be outside the main entrance to the hospital

Layoff notices went to a variety of health care workers at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and Mercy Hospitals,including:

• A registered nurse educator. This nurse works at the CommonSpirit facilities to ensure staff maintain clinical competencies, provide ongoing training to all nurses, and assist in overseeing and providing safe, evidence-based care.
• A safety nurse at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital who provides a second layer of protection ensuring medication order and lab orders are responded to appropriately and in a timely manner.
• Licensed vocational nurses who work in the emergency department at all the facilities. 
• Transcriptionists, orderlies, and unit secretaries.  

Nurses know that when positions, the work is pushed onto the remaining nurses and other ancillary staff. This makes it harder for nurses and others to deliver high-quality patient care. Cuts in staffing means delays in care for patients, which leads to poorer outcomes. 

News of these layoffs come after CommonSpirit closed the Grossman burn unit at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital on June 30, 2026 depriving Kern County of specialized lifesaving care. 

Hospital management has suggested that cuts to staffing are made in response to a changing financial landscape. However, nurses note that CommonSpirit has the resources to address the hospital’s needs. According to its tax filings, from 2020-2024 the top 10 CommonSpirit executives were paid in excess of $310.5 million. Its CEO took home a compensation package worth more than $14 million for fiscal year 2025.

CNA represents 1,500 nurses at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital, Mercy Hospital Downtown, and Mercy Hospital Southwest. CNA/National Nurses Organizing Committee represents more than 17,000 nurses at 33 CommonSpirit facilities across the country. 

California Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the nation with more than 100,000 members in more than 200 facilities throughout California and more than 225,000 RNs nationwide.