The State : Infants Moved Due to Strike

Worried over not enough registered nurses to care for sick infants because of a strike at seven major San Francisco-area hospitals, officials transferred many newborns to other Northern California facilities. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s Ethnic Labor Council called on the seven hospitals being struck by 1,700 licensed vocational nurses and hospital workers to submit all unresolved issues in that weeklong strike to binding arbitration. The vocational nurses’ and other workers’ labor dispute centers mainly on health insurance benefits and sick leave, while pay has been the stumbling block to a settlement with about 2,000 registered nurses. No new talks are scheduled. After the infant transfers, Dr. Kathleen Lewis, clinical director of nurseries at Children’s Hospital, and other obstetricians worry that if other expectant mothers or newborn children become sick, there will be no other facilities to take the infants. Officials would be forced to send them to more distant intensive-care facilities in Southern California or possibly out of state.