Informational picket Tuesday, June 30

Registered nurses at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif., will hold an informational picket on Tuesday, June 30, to alert the community about CommonSpirit Health’s (CommonSpirit) proposed staffing cuts that jeopardize patient safety and undermine quality care, announced the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU).

On June 1, CommonSpirit sent out layoff notices to more than 20 nurses and staff members across the hospital. The proposed layoffs include:

• Five out of six members of the nurse educators who ensure staff maintain clinical competencies, provide ongoing training to all nurses, and assist in overseeing and providing safe, evidence-based care.
• Nine unit coordinators who manage communication, patient flow, and essential administrative functions across the hospital. These coordinators handle calls from patient families and other duties to allow nurses to remain at the bedside. 
• Eight monitor technicians whose essential role is to continuously observe cardiac telemetry and often identify life-threatening changes requiring immediate intervention. 

Nurses say these proposed cuts would increase the risk of communication failures, delays in care, preventable errors, and poorer patient outcomes.

“We who work at Dominican hospital are devoted to ensuring the highest quality of care for our Santa Cruz County community, said Erin Johsnon, RN in the interventional radiology unit. “Unfortunately, it appears the decision-makers at CommonSpirit care much more about the bottom line than the patients they serve, and their actions are a clear indication of that. We are calling on CommonSpirit to rescind the layoff notices of our valuable staff members and work with us to create an optimal healing environment for our patients.”

What: Informational picket to demand no cuts and safe staffing
When: Tuesday, June 30, 1–5 p.m.
Where: Dominican Hospital, 1555 Soquel Drive, Santa Cruz, CA 95065

Patients have already experienced the effects of chronic understaffing, including emergency department wait times of up to five hours and delays in transfers to higher-acuity units such as telemetry and ICU. Nurses are frequently asked to care for patients with increasingly complex needs without adequate staffing support. Nurses say over the last year, they’ve been forced to take on the role of patient care technicians who provide one-on-one supervision for the most vulnerable patients. These additional duties make it harder for nurses to provide optimal care to every patient.

"Dominican Hospital has continuously failed to adequately staff our units while asking nurses to do more with less," said Crystal Crafton, RN, chief nurse representative. "These cuts place additional burdens on frontline caregivers and remove critical support systems that help keep patients safe. Short staffing is not safe for our patients and is unfair to our nurses, and is harmful to our community. Administration must stop these cuts and invest in safe patient care."

Nurses have offered solutions to address staffing challenges and improve efficiency, yet the hospital has failed to adequately respond to these recommendations.

According to federally collected statistics, over the last 10 years, we have seen a decline in the number of nursing hours devoted to each patient at Dominican Hospital. In addition, the emergency department has seen a 29 percent increase in the number of life-threatening cases since 2014. Yet, we have not seen an increase in staffing to appropriately address the high level of care each of these patients need.

Nurses know 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/NNU represents 700 registered nurses at Dominican Hospital. NNOC/NNU (including CNA) represents more than 17,000 CommonSpirit Health nurses at 33 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.