Nurses hold new rallies across Central Coast over PPE, layoffs

SALINAS, Calif. (KION) Nurses across the Central Coast came out in solidarity over personal protective equipment and layoffs at certain hospitals in our area on Thursday.

The rallies over the issues happened in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties as medical staff prepare for a potential surge in COVID-19 cases. While nurses at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital in Salinas were not protesting anything about their own workplace, they were standing in support of nurses in other locations who are not so happy.

Nurses from Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital and Natividad in Salinas, Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital in Hollister and Watsonville Community Hospital all participated. But in Watsonville, their demonstrations were also a protest.

For the second time in a few weeks, nurses at WCH say there is still a lack of proper personal protective equipment for staff and patients. They say this has not been addressed by the WCH administration, and recent layoffs add insult to injury.

"So in the middle of a pandemic, it's not the time to be laying off nurses. These case managers work very hard and two of them were effected out of 8. They were laid off. And that doubles the remaining case managers work load," said Roseann Farris, a registered nurse at WCH.

The hospital confirms with KION six to eight staff were laid off, but they says it is because the volume of patients there has dropped drastically, especially in the emergency room and for elective surgeries.

"It's unfortunate because every single person is important to us. It's unfortunate. The total layoffs were slightly more than one percent of the workforce," said Dan Brothman, the board chair of WCH.

"The nurses are united. We're family across the nation and we need to make sure that all nurses have appropriate PPE to protect them so that we can take care of our patients," said Vanessa Lockard, a registered nurse at SVMH.

Lockard says 28 nurses in the US have died from COVID-19. Nurses were putting out candles to commemorate the sacrifices. While nurses in Watsonville continue to demand proper PPE, the hospital says they have the supplies.

"We have over 10,000 surgical masks, we have just under 10,000 N95 masks, we have gloves," said Brothman.