Opinion: Why I went on strike, and what comes next for our patients

I am a registered nurse in the urology department at Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center, one of the 31,000 health care workers who went on strike earlier this year. We didn’t make the decision to go on strike lightly, but it was necessary.

After nearly a month on the picket lines, we’ve reached an agreement and ratified a new contract. I returned to work with my colleagues and patients with a renewed sense of purpose. 

When I was on the strike line, I thought constantly about why I was there: for my patients, who deserve the highest quality care. I've built close relationships with my patients as they go through incredibly challenging medical events, including dealing with cancer. It lifted my spirits to see my patients drive by, roll down their windows and give me the thumbs-up. They told me not to quit and understood that I was doing it for their care. 

I also thought a lot about my own family, who seek care at Kaiser. My mom had a stroke recently. She’s 88 years old and has been a Kaiser patient for over 60 years. After long days of picketing, I went home to care for her. She had been discharged with a follow-up for palliative care, but because of the strike, her care was delayed. 

Still, she supported me being out there. 

My department is very busy, like most Kaiser clinics. My colleagues and I are nurses with extensive, advanced training, who perform treatments, including intravesical chemotherapy, which goes into the bladder. Many of our patients stay here for up to four hours to receive treatment, which requires a ratio of one RN to one patient. 

In recent years, our patients have expressed concern about staffing levels and appointment availability. One nurse can be left alone on the entire floor because we don’t have enough staff. We asked Kaiser management for help again and again, but were always told that there are no backfills for our department.  

It’s incredibly stressful for the RN who is left alone. We are usually double-booked and try not to cancel our patients, but sometimes we have no choice — and that’s a heartbreaking reality. 

That is why we knew we had to take action. 

Now, our new contract has brought meaningful progress. It reflects many of the things we’ve been asking for for years: enforceable staffing language, improved training and retention efforts, and paths for escalating and addressing care delays. 

The work isn’t done, but we’ve taken a big step forward. And we did so by standing together and speaking up for our patients. I went on strike because I want my family and my patients to always have the type of care they need, when they need it. 

I joined Kaiser in 1997, and I've been with them ever since. I have worked in almost every department — cardiology, internal medicine, dermatology and rheumatology — as a registered nurse. I was here with my patients during the height of COVID, when nurses like me were considered heroes. But our fight with Kaiser leadership for a fair union contract went on for nearly a year, as they refused to address our patient care concerns. 

My family also has deep connections to Kaiser. In addition to my mom, my brother, my husband, my daughter, my son and his family are all Kaiser patients. My father passed away at Kaiser Baldwin Park, and appreciated the work of Kaiser’s staff until his dying day. 

I love my job, and that’s exactly why I’ve been so passionate about this fight. I want Kaiser to always live up to the promise it makes to the patients who trust it with their care. 

When my patients told me to keep going, it reminded me why I was in this fight. When I cared for my mom in the evenings, she told me to stay strong. We didn’t go on strike to walk away from the people we care for. We went on strike so we could come back to them with the staffing, resources and respect necessary to provide them with the care they deserve. 

Now, as we’ve returned to work with a new contract in hand, that commitment continues. And I will do everything in my power to ensure Kaiser lives up to their commitments.