Pinoy nurses in US protest Christmas layoffs
DALY CITY, California – Over 100 nurses and hospital workers held a picket at the Seton Medical Center in Daly City. They said it is unjust for management to layoff workers during the holiday season.
The Seton Medical Center is one of the largest employers in Daly City. Majority of the hospital workers there are Filipinos.
Eder Sosa has been a certified nursing assistant at Seton for 11 years. She said she was shocked when Seton announced that it would close down its skilled nursing unit on December 6 due to budget problems.
Hospital administrators say closing the 357-bed unit would save Seton $2.5 million a year.
Sosa said, “We’re so stressed right now. We can’t sleep. Where will our patients go? Their family can’t take care of them that’s why they go to us.”
Seton’s skilled nursing unit serves patients who need 24-hour care. Sosa and 50 other workers stand to lose their jobs just before Christmas.
“We have bills to pay and then Christmas is coming up. They also need to be considerate to us,” said Sosa.
Seton spokeswoman Beth Volz said some of the workers have been offered jobs in their other facilities.
Volz said, “Those who can’t find jobs, management plans to offer them severance packages and some unemployment help.”
As for the displaced patients, Volz added, “We have talked with other skilled nursing units who are qualified and ready take the patients in.”
Protesters said Seton needs to do whatever it takes not just to protect patient care but to save jobs as well. They said Seton should retrain affected workers so they can apply for other positions.
The workers also urged management to convince employees close to early retirement to voluntarily leave to keep the other employees working. Balitang America
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Registred Nurses Mostly Not Yet Affected
With the worst recession in over 70 years, even hospital workers here in the U.S. have started to feel the effects of the economic downturn. So many Americans have lost their jobs, with it are their private health insurance benefits.
Most of the hospital workers that have been affected by the lay-offs so far are the licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants and phlebotomists.
Currently employed registered nurses have mostly been spared by this recession. They still earn good salaries of between $50 to $70 per hour in acute care hospitals here in the SF Bay Area (nursing homes pay less). This is not to say that newly-licensed RNs have an easy time finding their first job as RNs.
Many U.S. hospitals are not willing to spend up to $40,000 to train each new RN with no local hospital experience. This is not good news to the tens of thousands of RNs in the Philippines hoping to land jobs in U.S. hospitals.