S.F. Hospital Walkout May Strike 8th Facility

Nurses, technicians and hospital service workers walked picket lines Friday as their unions prepared to extend their strikes to an eighth hospital today.

“If there’s no settlement, the strike will take place in the morning,” said Joe Twarog, chief negotiator for Hospital and Institutional Workers Union Local 250.

French Hospital in the city’s Richmond District braced for the walkout by 290 employees who belong to Local 250 and the California Nurses Assn. by limiting admissions to emergencies.

“We consolidated acute-care patients into one well-staffed nursing unit,” said Gene Young, the hospital’s marketing director.

He said no surgeries were canceled through Friday, but beginning today, there will be only emergency surgery.

Sick Leave

About 1,700 licensed vocational nurses, aides and housekeepers belonging to Local 250 have been on strike at seven hospitals since July 26 in a dispute over health benefits and sick leave. On Tuesday, about 2,000 registered nurses belonging to the nurses association walked off the job over pay at six of the same seven hospitals.

No talks were being held between the unions and the hospitals, which negotiate as Affiliated Hospitals of San Francisco.

But negotiations continued Friday between the city and a third union in an attempt to avert a strike by 1,600 nurses next week at two public hospitals and other city health centers.

“We have to start lighting some fires under their seats. . . . But there’s been more movement in the last couple of days then there was in April, when we started,” said Christine May, a spokeswoman for United Public Employees Union Local 790.

Local 790 originally set a strike deadline for Monday but has twice extended it on a day-to-day basis after city Health Department Director Dr. David Werdegar and two deputy mayors entered negotiations Wednesday.

Emergency Plan

But the city, though optimistic that a settlement can be reached, has an emergency plan prepared should a strike occur at San Francisco General Hospital, which cares for the city’s poorest and sickest patients, and Laguna Honda Hospital, which cares for more than 1,000 elderly people.

The plan included seeking help from hospitals in surrounding counties, volunteers and private ambulance companies.

If employees walk out at French Hospital and city facilities, only five hospitals in San Francisco would remain unaffected by strikes.

The seven hospitals struck by Local 250 and the nurses association hired replacement workers and flew in nurses to cope with the walkouts. But the number of patients dropped to 772 Thursday, down from 895 earlier in the week. Other hospitals, however, said they had not noticed any resulting increases in their own patient populations.

On Friday, the nurses group was talking to doctors at the struck hospitals to work out an arrangement to send sick and premature infants to the UC San Francisco Medical Center and Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, where striking nurses could help care for them.

Signed Cards

Local 250 said it was organizing 1,500 clerical and technical workers at the seven hospitals. Twarog said a majority of the non-union workers had signed cards asking to join the union but declined to give a number.