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On July 13 and 14, the California Nurses Association held a two-day strike at Keck Hospital and Norris Cancer Hospital of University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The strike was composed of hundreds of nurses picketing in the streets and up to the front entrance of the Keck hospital, along with a caravan of nurses and families driving around it honking and chanting in solidarity.
“We’ve been in contract negotiations for the past eight months, fighting for fair wages, but mainly patient safety,” said Kerri Dodgens, an ICU nurse at Keck. “The hospital has been chronically understaffed for 10 years. We rely heavily on temporary workers and overtime and full-time staff. Nurses work 18 hour shifts. And that’s unacceptable. It shouldn’t be on our shoulders to work ungodly hours to keep the hospital afloat because they choose to not hire enough nurses.”