Advertisement

Baby-Care Nurses End 3-Day Sickout : Labor: County-USC hospital employees say they will resume job action if promises to correct understaffing are not kept. The unit cares for critically ill infants.

Share
TIMES MEDICAL WRITER

A three-day sickout by nurses in the intensive care unit for newborns at County-USC Medical Center’s Women’s Hospital ended Tuesday, although nurses said they would resume their job action if hospital officials failed to fulfill their promises to correct understaffing.

“We are back to work today as a sign of good faith in the negotiations,” Lisa Nicholson, a neonatal intensive care unit nurse, said at a news conference. “We would like to cooperate with the county.”

Nicholson, standing with three other nurses in front of the hospital, said the nurses had obtained a commitment from administrators to meet the state staffing standard for neonatal intensive care of one nurse for every two critically ill babies. Recently, the ratio has often been one nurse for every four babies.

Advertisement

The hospital plans several steps to help meet the standard, which was established because such babies require minute-to-minute care.

These measures include transferring additional babies to private hospitals and hiring additional nurses to work on a per diem basis, according to hospital administrator Connie Diaz. Some administrative details of transfers will be taken care of by non-nursing personnel.

On Tuesday, there were 15 nurses on duty to care for the 30 babies in the unit, Nicholson said. “Today it is safe to work in the unit. If the situation becomes unsafe tomorrow, we will not be at work.”

Said Diaz: “(The nurses) are back. We will deliver on what we promised them.”

Nurses said they called in sick to protest working conditions that they believe put the lives of newborn babies in jeopardy. They also said they have tried for months without success to get officials to correct staffing problems.

“We have tried to call attention to a critical situation since January,” Nicholson said. “We were just fed up.”

Women’s Hospital is the nation’s busiest maternity facility, caring for about one of every 200 infants born in the United States. Since 1982, at least 16,000 babies have been born at the hospital each year.

Advertisement

The nurses said that a ratio of one nurse for every four critically ill babies is not only unsafe but is so stressful that it is difficult to hire and retain staff. “It is very difficult to watch four babies,” Nicholson said. “It is nearly impossible.”

Babies who are less ill do not require one nurse for every two babies, but most of the babies at County-USC fall into the more serious category.

Diaz has not disputed the understaffing, but said the hospital has worked to remedy the problem.

Nurses and administrators met Monday afternoon and discussed “tentative ideas both short-term and long-term” to alleviate understaffing, Diaz said. They also agreed to “meet weekly on an on-going basis” to help prevent the development of another “crisis situation,” she said.

Eventually, some measures, such as increased use of temporary nurses, may require approval of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Current personnel policies, which limit the ability to hire such nurses, would have to be modified and additional funds for salaries would have to be made available, Diaz said.

Advertisement