When the California Nurses Association (CNA) threatened Watsonville Community Hospital with a strike, hospital management made contingency plans to divert emergency room traffic to a neighboring hospital, for the safety of the patients. Ludicrously enough, the union doesn’t see it the same way. Lisa Harlow of the CNA said that reducing emergency room services was more of a danger to patients, and amounted to “holding the community hostage.” Who is holding whom hostage? It is disingenuous for the union to continually say they are fighting for greater nurse/patient rations, but that if they walk out on strike, patients needing ER services will be better served at a hospital with a contingent of nurses walking the sidewalk than across town at a fully-staffed facility. Perhaps the CNA is not really about ratios after all, but about dues…
