COUNTYWIDE : Nurses Ask Board to Intervene in Dispute

About 20 nurses from Ventura County Medical Center urged the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to intervene in their dispute with hospital administrators over the elimination of 10- and 12-hour work shifts.

The nurses told the supervisors that they are upset with Pierre Durand, assistant director of the county Health Care Agency, for replacing the three- and four-day work schedule with a traditional eight-hour, five-day-a-week schedule.

The nurses said they want to keep the longer shifts because nurses can spend more time with patients and the shorter workweeks give nurses more time with their families.

But they said Durand eliminated the schedule so the county would no longer have to pay overtime salaries when the nurses work longer than eight hours a day.

Several nurses said they also oppose the change to a traditional schedule because it would reduce their pay.

The change would affect about 70 nurses working in emergency and operating rooms.

After several nurses demonstrated outside the hospital, Durand agreed to delay his order until Sept. 22 to give the nurses time to persuade the supervisors to intervene.

“We did not go to school to go out and walk a picket line,” said Cindie Cole, a hospital nurse for more than six years.

Supervisor Maggie Erickson Kildee directed Durand to prepare a plan to resolve the dispute that the supervisors can consider next week.