>>Nurses allege unsafe working conditions at Desert Regional, share experiences during picket

Stretching several feet along North Indian Canyon Drive on Wednesday, around 20 registered nurses held up a poster filled with complaints about their workplace.

The 90 “Assignment Despite Objection” forms, which have been filled out over the past four months, detail tasks that were assigned to them and that they completed even though they did not think they were safe to do. Most were related to staff-to-patient ratios.

“Many of mine are on here,” said Linda Serrano, a registered nurse in the medical/surgical unit. On a normal day, and as outlined by California law, she should have five patients. But sometimes she said she has six to eight patients under her care, which is “way too much.”

“There’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of moral distress,” Serrano explained. “It has been documented and it’s science-driven that when nurses are out of ratio, they see that their patients are more at risk for drug errors,” as well as complications, hospital readmission and possibly even death.

Around 50 health care workers participated in an informational picket outside Desert Regional Medical Center on Wednesday morning to bring attention to alleged understaffing and high turnover rates at health care facilities.

Other pickets and actions were planned for Hi-Desert Medical Center in Joshua Tree, Los Alamitos, Templeton, Manteca, Turlock, San Ramon, San Luis Obispo and Modesto, according to California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, which represents 3,700 registered nurses at the facilities.

On Wednesday, the local nurses, who either had the day off, were on break or on their way to work, waved hand clappers and held signs with messages including “Respect nurses,” “Patients first in the community,” “Staff up for safe care” and “End crisis care now.” Cars passing by honked in support of the health care workers, and one driver was heard shouting “Thank you” from their vehicle.

Like Serrano, most of the workers present spoke about the struggles they’ve faced during the pandemic when they’ve been out-of-ratio with patients. Desert Regional registered nurse Eric Manayan said there are days when his work keeps “going and going and it’s like a big loop that never stops.” By the time he finishes with one patient, he has to move on to another, and those are dangerous situations to put patients in, he said, because “you can easily overlook them … any small signs that you miss could cost them their life.”

But even though the conditions are difficult, Manayan said he continues to stay because of the patients.

Registered nurse Maria Palpallatoc said she and her colleagues often have to prioritize patients based on “life-and-death situations,” which might mean some are left waiting a long time for a nurse to return to their room.

“It’s very stressful and most of the patients don’t know that’s going on,” Palpallatoc said, who works in the medical/surgical, bariatric, oncology and telemetry units. “They expect something like the normal, and it’s really hard to tell them, ‘I’m so sorry your nurse is taking care of seven patients right now.'”

She said ratios “went into the garbage” during the pandemic.

Tenet Health said in a statement Wednesday that the hospital regularly maintains nurse-patient ratios in its intensive care unit. If the COVID-19 pandemic or other emergency situations forced staffers to be out of ratio, the hospital would follow “very specific procedures to ensure we are doing all we can to fill those open positions.”

“The State of California recognizes hospitals may go out-of-ratio during unpredictable and uncontrollable situations, as long as the hospital shows prompt efforts to maintain staffing levels and exhausts the on-call list of nurses available,” the statement read. “The State reviewed our procedures during the January out-of-ratio incident, and we were able to demonstrate our efforts to fill those positions. We received no penalties following that review or at any time during the pandemic.”

What Palpallatoc wants most of all is to have a full working staff, which will help with patient safety and also give nurses a chance to take a break during their shifts.

“We’re not machines, we’re not robots,” she said. “We need to have time for ourselves, too.”

Laura Bruce, a member of the local California Nurses Association bargaining team, said the union has been negotiating with Tenet Health since February and has a deadline of June 30 to sign a contract. She believes a strong contract will be a vital tool to recruit and retain nurses and strength the quality of care for patients.

“They (Tenet) have the resources … we’re just asking them to put patients before the profits,” Bruce said.

Tenet Health said in a statement that in addition to hiring traveling nurses, the hospital is also actively recruiting full-time nurses and offering incentives for the most critical positions.

“To suggest that our hospital is not willing to invest in nursing care for our patients is just not correct.”

Bruce added that Wednesday’s picket was a way to show the community that nurses are standing up for patients and their well-being.

“We care,” Bruce said as her voice cracked. “Each one of these people are out here because they care.”

Ema Sasic covers health in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at ema.sasic@desertsun.com or on Twitter @ema_sasic.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Tenet nurses picket, allege unsafe working conditions at Desert Regional