Nurses say they are overworked, ask S.F. for relief
More than 1,300 San Francisco nurses have signed on to a “no-confidence” letter they intend to send to leaders at the Department of Public Health on Thursday to protest what they’ve long claimed is a chronic understaffing of nurses throughout the city’s health care system.
Despite playing critical roles on the front lines of the city’s mounting homelessness, mental health and drug addiction crises, nurses say they’re running on fumes, with conditions forcing them to take on more patients, skip breaks and work overtime. The city, they claim, has consistently refused to address the issue by hiring more nurses.
About 2,100 nurses are currently negotiating their contract with the city, but bargaining ended Friday with no resolution over the staffing issue, according to Nato Green, who is leading negotiations on behalf of the nurses’ union. Their current contract expires June 30 and a strike could come on July 1 if a deal isn’t reached by then.
“By not staffing hospitals appropriately, we’re harming all of our patients,” said psychiatric nurse Jennifer Esteen. “It is time to appropriately staff the hospitals so our patients can be served. We shouldn’t be depending on overtime to staff any of our facilities.”
Esteen was one of more than 100 nurses who flooded a Health Commission meeting Tuesday to take their demands directly to Health Department officials. The meeting ended not long after their arrival, she said.
Green said the union is asking for a budget boost of between $8 million and $10 million to address the staffing shortfalls. The union said there are 76 nurse vacancies, and claims that 40% of nursing hours are worked by temporary “per diem” nurses who don’t have access to the city’s pension program and other benefits.
“The nurses’ frustration is with the department’s long-term inability or unwillingness to address chronic understaffing that puts patients and nurses at risk,” Green said.
In a letter sent to Health Department officials Monday, Roland Pickens, director of the San Francisco Health Network, said the city has offered base wage increases of 11% over three years “along with other improvements” totaling more than $45 million investment in nurses.
The city’s offer “is a demonstration of our commitment to nurses. We also have made commitments to nurse staffing increases and differential pay for difficult assignments, and are discussing the concerns that nurses have, as we work toward completing the contract negotiations,” Pickens wrote.