Open Letter to Inland Valley RNs from the Organizing Committee

December 2012

December 5, 2012

Dear Inland Valley Medical Center RNs,

Together, we have worked professionally and tirelessly to provide quality care for our patients and our community. Many of us have worked here for years and some of us are new to our hospital. The common tie that binds us is that we are all committed to using our knowledge,skills, expertise, and healing compassion to provide the best quality care possible to our patients. This is our community. We want to be proud to say we work at Inland Valley Medical Center, and to take our own families here for care.

After numerous discussions among ourselves, we have decided to join together, along with our UHS colleagues at Corona Regional Medical Center, in Southern California’s premier nursing union and professional association, United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP). By doing so, we will also join with more than 21,000 other Registered Nurses and Health Care Professionals who work at Kaiser, Fountain Valley, Sharp, Chino Valley, Beverly and Parkview Community Hospitals, and many others.

We all know the many on-going crises at Inland Valley. We have seen management make temporary changes, as a result of state inspections or prior efforts to form a union at Inland Valley. We have heard management promise improvements. But we have seen that the improvements are temporary at best, and the promises go unfulfilled. Now there are new managers in place, making more of the same old promises.

Promises and temporary changes are no longer enough. We need permanent improvements in patient care and our own working conditions. We now know that the only way to win permanent change is to join together in UNAC/UHCP, with our Corona colleagues, and to guarantee those changes in a written contract. We won’t get fooled again by promises. As licensed patient advocates, we can no longer stand on the sidelines while decisions affecting patient care and our profession are made without our direct involvement.

We are moving forward together because we are primarily concerned about the quality of care and the practice of our nursing profession at Inland Valley, not money. By joining together, we will be more effective advocates for our patients and our profession. And we can have a positive effect not only on our own hospital, but on standards of care community-wide.

For more information, talk with any of us — the Inland Valley Nurses Organizing Committee!

Download this letter with signatures and photos of the committee.