Print
Since it started allowing hospitals to bend nurse-to-patient ratios in March, the state has made it clear that this was supposed to be a temporary measure, a way of handling the staffing crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instructions posted in June told hospitals they must “resume mandatory staffing levels as soon as feasible,” even if doing so required bringing in “other staffing options” such as brigades of temporary “registry” workers to help bolster the front lines.
But intensive care nurses at Kaiser Permanente’s Zion Medical Center in San Diego say that’s not what’s happening. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs, they say their employer continues to assign them three or more patients per shift one more than state law normally allows without providing enough backup.