Hospitals Prepare for a Strike at Blood Banks

As nurses and technicians who work for Red Cross blood banks in Orange and Los Angeles counties prepared for a strike beginning today, hospitals scrambled to develop alternative sources of blood.

The Red Cross provides 450,000 units of blood each year to an estimated 200 hospitals in the two counties--90% of the annual supply, according to Red Cross spokeswoman Gerry Sohle.

Spokesmen for various hospitals differed in their opinions of how serious a problem a strike would create in the short term but generally agreed a long strike could create serious difficulties.

Most Orange County hospitals could feel an almost immediate impact if Red Cross nurses and technicians walked out, hospital administrators said.

At the 505-bed St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, administrators met Wednesday to discuss possible contingency plans, spokesman Dennis Gashen said. “The Red Cross is the major supplier of blood for hospitals,” he said. “We probably have enough for two days.”

Elective surgery could be canceled, Gashen said, and the hospital might turn to employees and some patients for blood.

“A strike would be a disaster,” said Tom Bouse, chief technologist for the 175-bed Saddleback Community Hospital in Laguna Hills. “No, ‘disaster’ would be an understatement. We rely 100% on the Red Cross for our blood.”

Bouse said administrators would appeal to the relatives of patients to maintain the hospital’s blood supply.

Teresa Conrow, a spokeswoman for Local 535 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 225 Red Cross nurses and technicians, said the employees are prepared to strike because the union and agency are far apart on several important issues in negotiations. The union is seeking a 7% wage increase and a staff increase that would reduce the ratio of patients to nurses.

Top-scale registered nurses at Red Cross earn $26,942 annually, and licensed vocational nurses earn $18,840. Conrow said the vocational nurses’ pay should be raised close to that of the registered nurses because they do “essentially the same work” at the blood banks.

Tuesday night, the nurses voted by a 6-1 ratio to strike today if a satisfactory contract has not been reached. Their former contract expired at midnight Tuesday.

The two sides resumed negotiations Wednesday afternoon at the behest of federal mediator Frank Allen.

Ralph Wright, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-Orange County Red Cross Regional Blood Program, said that if the nurses and technicians strike, the center plans to use administrative personnel trained in the procedures performed by the striking personnel. He said the blood supply Wednesday was “in excess of 100% of desirable levels” for all blood types.

The center collects and processes about 1,500 units of blood a day at its nine permanent stations in the two counties and from mobile units that visit about 28 locations daily. Also, Wright said about 10% of the blood comes from cities as far away as the East Coast.

Potential blood donors could also be directed to nearby hospitals that accept blood.

“Just because nurses go on strike doesn’t mean there will be no blood, but we do expect a marked decrease in the amount we usually obtain from Red Cross,” said Dr. Arnold Abrams, medical director of the blood bank at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica.

“We are already running at the borderline of what is an acceptable supply for us.”

Problem Could Arise

Abrams expressed skepticism about the Red Cross finding enough personnel to do the work usually done by the nurses.

Dr. William Kern, director of pathology at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, said the hospital’s large blood needs could be met for only a day or two, although on Wednesday there were 235 units in the blood bank.

A problem could arise, he said, if 20 or 30 units of a particular type of blood were needed in the emergency room or operating room. To lessen the chances of that, Kern said, the hospital would reduce the number of surgeries “almost at once.”

Times staff writer Sandra Crockett contributed to this story from Orange County.