Prison nurses go to Soledad City Council meeting to get voices heard

Nurses came together across the street from the Soledad City Hall. They showed up to the City Council’s meeting Wednesday to thank the council members for listening to them in December. The nurses wanted to attend the council meeting to also make sure action was being taken.

Nurses said the call light system has been broken for about two years at the Salinas Valley State Prison. Right now prison mates have no way of buzzing a nurse if they have a medical issue.

The nurses said they brought up the problem to the California Department of Corrections but weren’t being heard. So the prison nurses then tried their local representatives. City Council members started calling their state connections and got results. State prison management said they have allocated the funds to fix the problem.

Soledad’s City Manager Adela Gonzalez said, “These issues, like the call button system, is very important to them. We were, I was glad that they did come to approach the City Council and happy that the council could intervene and help.”

Nurses said they came to Wednesday’s meeting because they want to hold the City Council accountable and are asking for a timeline of when the state will fix the problem.

This story will be updated.