FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 5, 2024

SACRAMENTO – This morning, 1,600 frontline healthcare workers from across California held a march and rally at Sutter Health’s Sacramento Medical Center. Workers are demanding solutions to chronic short staffing, the closure of services in underserved communities, and wages that fail to keep up with inflation across the Sutter Health system.

Despite profits of $1 billion in 2024, healthcare workers across Sutter Health facilities say years of low wages have led to high turnover rates. The resulting understaffing has forced employees to take on multiple roles, creating burnout among caregivers who were already stretched thin.

“In the operating room, if the doctor doesn’t have the proper items or supplies needed, it’s because there aren’t enough staff to ensure the operating room is stocked—and patient care can be delayed. That’s unacceptable,” said Nicole Moorer, a Unit Secretary in the Operating Room at Sutter Solano Medical Center. “Sutter Health executives can do better for patients and workers if they direct their resources to improving staffing and expanding access to care instead of closing facilities and padding their own paychecks.”

Sutter Health has closed departments in facilities in lower-income areas such as San Francisco’s Mission Bernal campus and is vowing to replace the aging Alta Bates Ashby campus with a smaller facility in Emeryville, resulting in a loss of services in the communities that need them the most. Meanwhile, Sutter is paying their corporate executives millions a year, including Sutter Health CEO Warner Thomas, who took home more than $11.5 million in 2023.

“Sutter executives have been closing down services in our poorer communities, focusing their resources on wealthy areas,” said Joe Brown, a Radiology Technologist at Sutter Roseville Medical Center. “We care about our patients and our communities. But Sutter Health executives, they’re not like us. Executives are betraying our non-profit values and historic commitment to the people Sutter Health was founded to care for.”

Caregivers from across California joined Sutter healthcare workers, all members of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) in calling on Sutter Health to invest in its healthcare staff by ensuring safe staffing levels, fair wages, and affordable healthcare. The protest followed a series of pickets to draw attention to the crisis of short staffing, patient care and working conditions at Sutter Healthcare locations across Northern California.

SEIU-UHW represents workers at nine Sutter Health facilities. These frontline healthcare workers include nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, licensed vocational nurses, environmental services, cooks, technicians, and more.

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SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is a healthcare justice union of more than 120,000 healthcare workers, patients, and healthcare activists united to ensure affordable, accessible, high-quality care for all Californians, provided by valued and respected healthcare workers. Learn more at www.seiu-uhw.org.