California Legislators held a hearing on CDPH oversight and Joyce Powell was there to hold regulators’ feet to the fire and demand accountability for enforcing safe staffing laws.

Powell, who serves as SEIU 121RN’s Secretary-Treasurer, represented our union in an expert panel discussion at the March 14 hearing of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services. 

Powell is an Emergency Room Nurse at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, and she drew upon her experiences at the bedside to educate legislators about the link between CDPH accountability and patient safety.

Powell reminded the Committee members that she had addressed them last year about SB227, a law that mandates fines for hospitals that repeatedly violate California’s nurse to patient ratios. And one year later, Powell told them, CDPH is still not fully enforcing the law.

“Our members have issued hundreds of complaints about ratio violations and nurses across the state have submitted many more,” Powell told the Senators on the Committee. “Responses to our complaints often take months, even in cases where the complaint includes a patient death or demonstrates that patients’ lives may have been at risk. Sometimes, we never hear back at all.”

Powell’s testimony was part of our larger Patients Can’t Wait campaign to push CDPH to appropriately enforce safe staffing laws. Her appearance before the committee was followed by a rally with other healthcare unions and elected officials at the state Capitol, and then a letter to the CDPH director from 26 legislators demanding the agency issue a plan of action. Following these events, with pressure mounting from our campaign, CDPH issued an “All Facilities Letter” to all California hospitals, putting them on notice that they will be fined for ignoring safe staffing laws.

While the fight for safe staffing is ongoing, our experience shows that healthcare workers’ stories lead us toward safer care for our patients.