‘WE ARE BUSY BUT WE ARE SAFE’—An ambulance leaves Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks on Dec. 8. MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers
The union representing nurses at Los Robles Regional Medical Center and several other Southern California hospitals is threatening a strike against parent company HCA Healthcare just as a wave of new patients sick from the coronavirus is pushing the Conejo Valley’s only hospital to capacity.
Los Robles is filling up fast as winter flu and respiratory cases, combined with new COVID-19 cases, are taking up the majority of the facility’s staffed and available beds. Healthcare workers this week called on the community to do its part in the war against the virus, which is surging locally.
In the past 14 days, 476 people in Thousand Oaks, Westlake and Newbury Park have tested positive for COVID-19, according to venturacountyrecovers.org. Tuesday brought a new single-day high for COVID hospitalizations in Ventura County: 147.
Los Robles staff reported that the emergency department was so busy Monday night with COVID patients, who are kept separate from the general ER patients, that the hospital was using its outdoor overflow tent and began temporarily diverting patients with non-serious injuries to other facilities.
“We’re mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted,” said one nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Winter is ordinarily busy with flu and respiratory issues, but then you throw in COVID and the fact that we’re two weeks post-Thanksgiving, and here we are.”
After word of the situation at Los Robles spread over social media, hospital CEO Natalie Mussi issued a statement Wednesday seeking to reassure the community that the hospital is busy but in good shape.
“(We) have beds and capacity available to care for our patients,” Mussi said. “In addition, we have protocols in place to ensure the health and safety of all of our patients, team members and community. Like the rest of the country, we are seeing an increase of admissions to the hospital—it is a combination of ‘winter volume’ and COVID cases.”
“We remain confident in our ability to serve the community during this time and appreciate your ongoing support,” she added.
Los Robles has 342 acute care beds and 24 intensive care unit beds, according to the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit healthcare watchdog organization.
“If needed, we have surge plans ready to go but we are not there yet,” Mussi said. “We are prepared to care for our patients and community during these extraordinary times. We are using our tent for (emergency department) patients to allow for social distancing and to accommodate our patients.”
Capacity regarding hospital beds and the ICU is constantly in flux as patients are admitted, discharged and moved between levels of care, but on Tuesday staffers told the Acorn the hospital was “completely full, there are no beds.”
Elective surgeries, meanwhile, are ongoing.
Union concerns
Nurses told the Acorn this week they’re frustrated the hospital is not testing staffers unless they are symptomatic.
Instead, a staff member is informed when they have been exposed to a COVID-positive patient or colleague, and they are responsible for getting tested on their own time, they said.
“It is surprising they won’t test staff,” one nurse said.
Nurses have also complained about rationed personal protective equipment and staffing ratios, as California has allowed hospitals to seek permission to waive state-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios to deal with the pandemic.
“Newsom did that to help hospitals out, but it’s burdening nurses without additional help,” one nurse said.
In her Dec. 9 statement, Mussi said, “Our supply chain remains strong and we have no concerns with our PPE supplies.”
Los Robles nurses are part of Service Employees International Union Local 121RN, which is in contract negotiations with HCA Healthcare, a Nashville, Tenn.- based healthcare giant that owns Los Robles and over 180 other hospitals.
The extension on their collective bargaining agreement expired Dec. 4.
Nurses and licensed medical professionals picketed outside the hospital Nov. 30 asking for safer staffing levels.
Union members voted Wednesday on whether to authorize a strike. The results were not available by press time. A vote to authorize a strike does not mean nurses will strike but allows the union to use the possibility of a strike as a bargaining tool.
In a Dec. 4 email to staff obtained by the Acorn, Mussi said, “This is all being done to gain leverage in the current bargaining” and “a strike during the current pandemic is simply not the right thing to do for our patients and community.”
In the email, she asked staff to continue to work should a strike be called.