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For Tiffany Dodson, feeling supported by her community during the informational picket she and her colleagues held in front of Sutter Coast Hospital on Tuesday made her choke up.

Dodson, who has worked at Sutter Coast Hospital for nine years, the last seven of which were spent in the emergency room, said staffing shortages and the need for a safer working environment prompted her and her colleagues to join the California Nurses Association in January 2021.

Those issues, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, led to Sutter Coast Hospital nurses to participate in contract negotiations with Sutter Health for the first time ever, Dodson said. But it’s been about nine months since those negotiations began. Dodson said CNA negotiators weren’t getting much feedback from administration to build a new contract.

“It’s very important to let them know we’re done talking,” she told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Wednesday. “We’re ready to make some change. We are definitely still negotiating.”

Sutter Coast hospital nurses joined their colleagues at 14 other Sutter Health hospitals Tuesday holding informational pickets protesting what they say is a refusal to address their staffing, workplace violence and pandemic readiness concerns.

According to a March 11 California Nurses Association and National Nurses United joint press release, Sutter Health’s nurses are pushing for a contract that provides the following: safe staffing levels; personal protective equipment stockpiles; presumptive eligibility for workers’ compensation that covers infectious diseases; and workplace violence protection including plans to mitigate and prevent violence within hospitals.

Nurses are also asking Sutter Health officials to comply with California’s PPE stockpile law, according to the release. Implemented in April 2021 and sponsored by CNA, the law requires hospitals to maintain a three-month supply of new and unexpired personal protective equipment and written procedures for determining the quantity and types of equipment used in its normal consumption.

On Thursday, a Sutter Health spokesman said the network is also focused on reaching a “shared resolution” with its nurses.

“Just as Sutter’s commitment to safe, compassionate care remains unchanged, so does our goal of reaching an agreement that reflects the good and important work of our nurses and maintains our strength and stability as an organization,” he said in an email. “As we continue with negotiations, our patients will continue to receive uninterrupted, quality care.”

Inadequate staffing was a concern when Sutter Coast Hospital nurses voted to join the California Nurses Association in January 2021.

According to Dodson, there was a constant shuffle of traveling nurses and a constant need to train new nurses. Giving an exact number of nurses at Sutter Coast Hospital is difficult, she said, because it’s constantly changing.

Another concern was the pushback nurses received from administrators when they tried to offer suggestions or collaborate, Dodson said.

When the pandemic began, administrators told staff they had surge plans in place, Dodson said, but nurses weren’t part of developing those plans. At the beginning, two RN positions were cut from the emergency room, she said. It took about two weeks to find the staff to handle a COVID surge.

“I think there was this idea or concept that we’re so small, (COVID) can’t possibly hit us like everywhere else,” Dodson told the Outpost. “Being told by Sutter that they had surge plans in place and we were prepared, but not being involved in part of that… I think that led to some moral distress for nurses, coming into our shift and wondering what the next shift was going to be like — Is there going to be enough staffing when the next influx of 15 COVID cases come through the door? How come there’s no staff to open up the COVID tent? It was definitely a very trying time.”

At the height of the Delta surge, in August and September 2021, 25 COVID-19 patients had been admitted to Sutter Coast Hospital. Speaking at a town hall meeting on Aug. 27, CEO Mitch Hanna said there were 36 patients at the hospital during a time when it would normally have 20 to 25.

Dodson also spoke to nurses’ concerns about workplace violence, saying she was assaulted by a patient about three years ago. Dodson sustained a fractured elbow and a “messed up” shoulder. She said she had to take a year off as a result, but was told that she wasn’t eligible for workers’ compensation though she sustained the injury at work.

“I was fighting for two-and-a-half years to get workers’ compensation to cover the last year I was completely off work,” Dodson said, adding that other nurses see that and wonder if they will be in the same boat if they are assaulted at work. “How will they provide for their own families?”

On Thursday, Amber Foust, who works in Sutter Coast’s intensive care unit, said she and her colleagues share Dodson’s concerns about staffing and workplace violence. Further, not having a fair contract in place keeps new nurses from seeking employment at Sutter Coast Hospital, she said.

“There are quite a few nurses in the community,” Foust told the Outpost, mentioning the licensed vocational nursing to registered nurse bridge program at College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University that began in 2020. “This is our first contract. It offers more protection and offers us to have more of a voice in how our jobs are done.”

A big part of the informational picket on Tuesday was to show Sutter that its nurses are uniting and need to be heard, Foust said.

“I think we need a different workplace culture where nurses are respected and physicians and any other ancillary staff we have,” she said.

Dodson said she and her colleagues “woke up the community a little bit” with their informational picket and are now headed back to the negotiating table.

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