Laboring patients diverted to unfamiliar hospitals, planned C-sections pushed back for hours and nurses grinding through 12- to 16-hour shifts with barely a break: that is how UCSF Mission Bay Birth Center nurses describe life on their floor, which they say is chronically understaffed and short on hands-on training.
According to bedside staff, the Birth Center often absorbs complex patient transfers that demand extra time, experience and specialized education. Nurses say that mix, combined with thin staffing, leaves patients at risk. Yesterday, dozens of staffers gathered outside the Mission Bay hospital to publicly press UCSF leadership for more hires, stronger education and steadier front-line management.
As reported by The San Francisco Standard, the Birth Center delivers about 2,500 babies a year. Nurses told the paper that triage call buttons are sometimes left blinking, labor rooms are at times short a nurse and some patients have been asked to head to hospitals they have never used before. The Standard also noted that nurses passed a no-confidence vote in the unit’s former nursing director in January and that leadership turnover left the floor without consistent direction for months…