Sunday, August 25, 1996Yes on Prop. 216 for better care
Registered nurses at the UCLA Medical Center engaged in
informational picketing at the facility on Aug. 15.
Nurses intend to stand firm in their protest against:
* Profit-driven cost containment which results in unsafe patient
care.
* Restructuring which reduces patient-to-RN staffing ratios and
is in conflict with the mandates of the California Nursing Practice
Act.
* Lack of attention by the university to the issues that
directly affect the quality of patient care and consumer
safety.
* The university’s threat to unilaterally impose conditions of
employment not negotiated with the nurses.
* Major take-aways dealing with wages and benefits proposed by
the university.
According to many of the UCLA nurses, the University of
California is engaging in changes in health care delivery which are
detrimental to patients.
Barbara Grasso, director of UC relations for the California
Nurses Association (CNA) has emphasized, "RNs have serious
questions about some of these proposals. As advocates for patients,
RNs are in no mood to have these changes dictated and imposed in
the absence of serious give-and-take and a good faith effort to
reach a reasonable agreement.
"At UCLA the number of unlicensed staff, known as care partners,
has gone from 30 to 120 in the last five years, while the number of
RNs has gone from 710 to 650. In addition, UCLA is targeting its
most experienced nurses, who are earning the highest salaries, for
layoffs, depriving patients of an invaluable amount of experience.
These maneuvers have led to a decline in the quality of care."
In short, the move to a profit-driven style of patient care
compromises the integrity of registered nurses’ ability to provide
adequate, safe patient care. It leaves patients in the
less-than-desirable position of being treated like minimally
deserving corporate investments and not like individual humans
needing adequate health care.
As registered nurses and doctors are being forced to cut costs
in order to maximize profit, patients needing treatment to prevent
sickness and death may find that their needs have no place in the
cost-benefit analysis which now influences the University of
California’s approach to health care.
Barbara Grasso
Statewide UC Relations Director
California Nurses Association
Ken Pirsenbarger
IRN CNIII CCU
Nancy Neufer
RN CNIII EMC
Rosario C. Hurley
RN CNII
John Duda
RN ICU
Marie Dobbins
RN, float team
J. David Gurman
RN CNII
Diane Hirsch Garcia
CNA-UCLA, Labor Representative
Evi Desser
RN, NP
President, CNA Â Region Six
Nurse Practitioner, UCLA