Wednesday rally to protest staffing crisis

Registered nurses at UCI Health Irvine in Irvine, California, will hold a rally and picket on Wednesday, October 28, to highlight their increasing concerns about unsafe working conditions and the removal of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) from ICU night shifts, announced California Nurses Association, an affiliate of National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country.

“We have a staffing crisis. We have been short-staffed in the intensive care unit since UCI Health Irvine opened in December 2025,” said Shane Aderhold, RN in the ICU unit. “Now with the removal of certified nursing assistants from night shifts in the ICU, we are doing the work of CNAs on top of our own work. We are constantly being stretched too thin. This isn’t safe for our patients and it puts our licenses at risk.”

Who:    RNs at UCI Health Irvine

What:   Rally and picket for safe staffing and patient safety

When:  Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, 7:30-9:30 a.m.

Where: UCI Health Irvine, main entrance, 19210 Jamboree Rd., Irvine, CA

CNAs provide critical support, such as toileting, bathing, and feeding patients, that allows ICU nurses to stay focused on caring for critically ill patients. Without this crucial support at night, nurses are pulled away from their patients to perform additional tasks, taking valuable time and attention away from the continuous monitoring and care ICU patients require. This increased workload raises serious patient safety concerns.

“UCI Health said this new facility would provide advanced care to the community. But they failed to adequately plan for the staffing needs for this new hospital,” said Brye Varner, RN in the ICU unit. “All the attention has been on the cutting-edge design and services but the reality is that we do not have enough staff to safely operate this hospital. Nurses are being floated from the ICU to other units that are extremely short staffed. This is unsustainable.”

Nurses are calling on UCI Health to address the staffing crisis and ensure adequate support is available for safe patient care around the clock. There is no nursing shortage. Nationally, according to the most recent data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are about 1.15 million registered nurses with active licenses who were not employed as RNs, as of May 2025. In California, there are more than 187,000 registered nurses with active licenses who are not working as nurses.

CNA/NNU represents 4,600 nurses at UCI Health and more than 26,000 nurses across the UC Health system.

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.