Nurses blast San Jose’s Good Samaritan Hospital, HCA over staffing shortages

Accusing Good Samaritan Hospital and its parent company HCA Healthcare of jeopardizing patient care, registered nurses protested outside the facility on Wednesday, asserting the healthcare provider is failing to address staffing shortages and inadequate meal breaks.

The California Nurse Association said the hospital’s management has yet to adequately address more than 100 instances of unsafe staffing conditions or missed breaks, claiming the healthcare agency is putting profits over people.

“We take care of a lot of sick people, and as a nurse, I only have two hands,” said Chris Shulga, a registered nurse at the hospital for over 12 years. “I can only do as much as these two hands can do, so when we have critically ill patients, we just need more people. We need more bodies, we need more hands and we need more minds just to do all of the tasks that are required for these very sick patients. We’re not receiving that ability to take care of your family members at this hospital.”

At the crux of the issue is compliance with Title 22, the state regulations establishing the required ratio of registered nurses to patients. The nurses rallying outside the hospital also accused the hospital of gaming the system to appear in compliance while saying the reality reflected that nurses were pulled in to do other duties because the hospital was also understaffing other positions, impacting the hospital’s ability to administer care promptly.

“It looks like they’re actually making their numbers, but they’re not,” registered nurse John Pasha said. “What I mean by making their numbers is that they’re seeing everybody and they’re doing so in a fashionable amount of time. But they’re delaying care by hours and hours and hours, so I mean things like medications are delayed, and then there’ll be an increase in pressure ulcers, usually from this sort of stuff. When we start to lose nurses at the bedside, other things fall to the wayside as well.”

HCA Healthcare denied the accusations in a statement provided to The Mercury News.

“Facts matter, especially in healthcare,” a Good Samaritan Hospital spokesperson said. “We fully appreciate the incredible work our nurses do, so it’s disappointing that their union leadership chooses to misrepresent the care they provide. To be clear, Good Samaritan Hospital is 100% compliant with Title 22 requirements, has added 83 nurses in 2024, reduced nursing turnover by nearly 7% and annually is among America’s Best 100 Hospitals by Healthgrades. Our hospital, our nurses and our physicians are here every hour of every day to care for our community.”

HCA’s history in San Jose, particularly with respect to its operation of Regional Medical Center, has become a hot-button issue with caregivers and residents.

Earlier this year, HCA initially decided to close the trauma center at Regional Medical Center before reversing course and downgrading it from a Level II to a Level III facility. At the time, physicians and nurses excoriated HCA because of the impact on residents in East San Jose, who would be forced to travel longer distances to receive care for more serious procedures. While Santa Clara County swooped in at the last minute to purchase the hospital and save the trauma center, detractors of HCA claim its actions are further proof of its business model and how the company puts the well-being of patients below profit.

The unresolved angst facing HCA was clear at a recent San Jose Planning Commission meeting, where the advisory body recommended that the City Council deny its request to rezone Good Samaritan’s campus to build a new facility in compliance with state seismic laws and expand operations.

Several commission members said HCA’s profit motive put residents at harm and questioned what would stop Good Samaritan from cutting more services like it did when it axed its psychiatric unit.

Although the planning commission’s decision was purely symbolic because the City Council is the final arbiter, some nurses were delighted to hear San Jose officials stand up to HCA.

“It’s a very profitable institution, and making it bigger will only make it more profitable,” Pasha said. “The problem is that if we can’t staff it now and they are cutting corners now with the size that it is now, how are they going to not cut corners as time goes on? They’ve only proven that they do everything they can to save money not by more innovation but by squeezing their work.”