photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
Providence staff with the National Union of Healthcare Workers, NUHW, and supporters
rally outside Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital for an informational picket on
Wednesday, February 12th, 2025.

Healthcare workers across the North Coast staged a one-day picket Wednesday, the point was to draw attention to conflicts over staffing and pay.

Hospice workers and caregivers at Providence hospitals and health centers in Humboldt, Napa, and Sonoma counties say they're understaffed and underpaid; and, they say it's patients who are paying the price.

"I need to be able to give quality care to my patients when they're dying," said Jennifer Harrison, a hospice worker based in Petaluma. "If that means that I see five or six patients in an 8-hour day, it's a full day, and I'm not able to really give patients the care that they deserve."

Harrison joined dozens of other Providence staff with the National Union of Healthcare Workers for an informational picket at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Healthcare union members joined pickets at six different Providence facilities; in Eureka, Napa, Petaluma, and Santa Rosa, calling attention to staff concerns but not striking.

In a statement to KRCB, Providence noted the pickets would not disrupt care, and said contract negotiations between Providence and the union are continuing in good faith.

Among those joining the picketing workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital was Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey.

"My late wife was an RN here for 20 years," Coursey said. "She worked over here for 20 years. She knew that the jobs that you do are what make this hospital run. You are what makes Providence stay open here."

Controversy and labor disputes have surrounded Providence since merging with St. Joseph Healthcare almost a decade ago.

Since 2020 Providence has shortened the length of face to face patient care, laid off staff, closed urgent care facilities, birth centers, and outpatient labs in Humboldt, Sonoma, and Napa counties.

The nonprofit healthcare giant was sued by California Attorney General Rob Bonta in September 2024, after a woman was denied an emergency abortion at the Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka earlier in the year.