Union rallies to support nurses

Michelle Swafford

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 | 11:16 a.m.

With contract talks under way, some nurses who are members of Service Employees International Union Local 1107 say patient care is inadequate at Valley and Desert Springs hospitals in Las Vegas because nurses' patient loads are too large.

Nearly 200 SEIU nurses who work at Desert Springs and Valley rallied in front of Desert Springs on Tuesday in support of safer patient care and better pay and health benefits. About 150 Las Vegas Valley members of supporting unions picketed with the nurses.

Dawn Sweezy, a Desert Springs emergency room nurse and member of the SEIU negotiations committee, said her hospital's parent company, Pennsylvania-based Universal Health Services Inc., is more interested in increasing profit for Wall Street investors than improving patient care.

"Health care should not be about profit," she said. "These two hospitals, Desert Springs and Valley, make it harder every day for all of us to deliver the kind of care we want to deliver."

She said nurses work overtime and are on-call for shifts frequently, but the nurses aren't able to care for patients the way they want to because they have too many patients to care for at a time.

Desert Springs said in a statement that its staffing levels are "safe and appropriate because the state of Nevada and the federal government have regulatory agencies who constantly monitor this hospital. Also, the nationally recognized Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations approves of our staffing levels."

Approximately 1,000 SEIU nurses at Desert Springs and Valley hospitals are in union contract negotiations with the Valley Health System, a subsidiary of Universal Health. The nurses are now working without contracts and the SEIU hopes to reach a contract agreement by Friday.

Jane McAlevey, executive director of the SEIU Local 1107, said Valley Health nurses want to increase the ratio of nurses to patients and the SEIU submitted California's mandatory ratio levels, which vary by department, as an example.

"There are not enough nurses on the floor," McAlevey said. "Both of these hospitals need to increase the percentage of nurses to patients."

The nurses also want better retention programs such as higher pay and more say in their schedules and pension plans, which will help with retention, McAlevey said.

Valley Health System's other two Las Vegas Valley hospitals, Summerlin and Spring Valley, are not unionized. The SEIU also represents nurses at Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Inc.'s Sunrise Hospital and is attempting to unionize the nurses at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, which are owned by San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West.