Kaiser Nurses Announce 2-Day Strike Over Ebola Preparedness

OAKLAND (KCBS) — Registered nurses claim the nation's hospitals are inadequately prepared to protect them against Ebola and announced on Thursday that they will hold a National Day of Action on Nov.12 which includes a two-day strike at every Kaiser Permanente hospital and clinic.

Tens of thousands of nurses are expected to strike or picket from coast to coast because they say hospitals aren't taking their concerns about Ebola seriously.

RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of both the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, announced the plan at union headquarters in Oakland.

"It's a crime that nurses actually have to strike, that they have to picket. Nurses who've been willing to stand for the patients, stand by the patients irrespective of their conditions whether it's flu or whether it's Ebola. Whatever it is, nurses have been there," DeMorro said.

Related Content:

DeMoro said 18,000 nurses will walk out at 66 Kaiser's facilities, in a two-day strike, because Kaiser has been especially cavalier in dismissing nurses' worries.

In a statement, Kaiser said that such allegations are "simply untrue," and that it's in the middle of contract negotiations with the union, which they say is well aware of it's comprehensive Ebola preparation, and that they will make contingency plans to operate normally during the strike.