Filipino-American Nurses Stage a Protest Demands Safety and Better Working Conditions
Filipino-American nurses were among the 520 hospital employees who staged a protest early this week. The health workers are demanding safety and better working conditions at Marin General Hospital in San Francisco.
The nurses lost hope on the 11-month long negotiation which didn't result to any positive outcome. They claimed that the management declined to address patient care and better safety measures despite the huge profits of the medical center. In a statement released to press, around $49 million of net revenue has been generated by Marin General Hospital but the Filipino-American nurses didn't notice any valuable improvement.
The protesters relayed to the journalists that they are already tired with so many abuses committed by the American health institution. Another sentiment was shared by a registered nurse, who has been serving MGH for many years. She narrated the significance of "additional nurse per department" to have a better break rotations of the nurses.
A certain nurse who joined the strike relayed the poor working condition in the hospital. They also expressed their disappointments for the lack of lift facilities in the hospital. The protesters said, "A nurse will try and lift a patient by themselves or push a patient and there’s a lot of force that one nurse cannot do. But they do it because we are healers. We really try to do our best under the circumstances we have."
In response to the action of the Filipino-American nurses, who walked off job to conduct a street protest, the Director of Communications for MGH called the nurses "irresponsible".
The stake holders of the hospital argued that "unsafe staffing" issue is not true. In the last 4 years, nurse and employee serious injury related issues dramatically decreased and MGH purportedly maintains excellent patient safet care record which is far better than the national average.
The two sectors are planning to return to the negotiation table to further discuss the health related risks and issues that are being raised by the nurses. As for the protesters, they believe that what they did would also benefit the patients of Marin General Hospital. Hope for safety and better conditions for the Filipino-American nurses is starting to regenerate when various global news agencies published their painful experience at the health institution.