In an escalation of their protest against CommonSpirit Health, which operates locally as Dignity Health, dozens of nurses, doctors and community supporters managed to enter a room where company executives were meeting, demanding that they immediately cancel the planned layoff of almost 200 members of the health system in California.
According to Ariana Gómez, spokesperson for health professionals, the hospitals that would be most affected by the layoffs would be the California Hospital Medical Center (CMCH) in downtown Los Angeles, with 82 people discharged, and the Memorial Hospital in Bakersfield, with 57.
Most of the layoffs would affect support staff positions, including patient transporters, physical and occupational therapy assistants, telemetry technicians, unit assistants, administrative staff and pediatric unit secretaries.
They have also received layoff notices for nursing professionals, including nurse educators and pediatric and wound care nurses.
The reduction in support staff means that nurses will have less time to provide direct care to inpatients, as they will have to assume a greater workload of administrative work and other non-nursing tasks, such as answering phones.
“Ron Yolo is hiding”
After a public rally and protest in front of the hospital located at 1416 South Grand Street, protesters headed to the hospital lobby. They walked through the front door – some took the elevators and others took the stairs – to reach the administration office of Ron Yolo, regional director of nursing at Dignity Health. The movements of the protesters were monitored by two security guards.
In the end they realized that Yolo was nowhere to be found. “He is hiding from us,” said one of the leaders of the protest movement.
Afterwards, they descended as a group to the second floor. Some leaders were gathered there, whose faces immediately showed nervousness, although they allowed Laura Topete to read a letter addressed to her employer. The letter was delivered to Roland Fargo, chief operating officer of Dignity Health.
The letter intended to be delivered to Ron Yolo has been signed by more than 5,000 nurses who oppose the planned layoffs by CommonSpirit Health, owner and operator of 17 hospitals where they intend to lay off more than 175 frontline healthcare workers. They demand the immediate cancellation of said plan.
“I am concerned about the impact this decision to lay off will have on the community,” said Katarina Kye, a certified nursing assistant (CNA) in the area of pediatrics at California Hospital Medical Center.
She has worked at that hospital since April 2025 and is among those who received the layoff notice, whose implementation was for August 3, but which was somehow extended until December 1.
“They [CommonSpirit Health] have not said it officially or publicly either, but here [at the CMCH] they want to close the entire pediatric unit,” the auxiliary nurse revealed. “The unit has 11 nurses and they want to fire us all.”
Where will the patients go?
Katarina Kye criticized the decision due to the impact of layoffs on patient care, as it would cause delays in treatments and increase the workload in emergency departments.
“Patients will have to travel further to receive medical care,” she said, while mentioning feeling disappointed that she went to college to get a degree and not be able to do everything she could to help people.
“Really, what they do is slap us in the face, because we come here to serve the people and take care of our patients, and these hospitals prevent us from doing that,” Kye said. “They are taking resources from us, they are taking staff from us and, above all, Catholic hospital systems are closing pediatric units at a very high rate.”
The nursing assistant added: "I don't have children now, but I think of a mother who is about to give birth and can't find anyone to help her. It would be disastrous. It will affect everyone, because there will be more patients waiting in the emergency room; that means a greater burden on the emergency room when they are already saturated. Patients will have to stay there waiting. Care is simply delayed."
He explained that there are also pediatric surgeons who would lose their jobs and who do not know if they are going to continue operating on children in the clinic: "And if they operate on them, where will they go afterwards? Normally they go up for post-operative recovery and then come with us to spend the night and for us to watch them. What does that mean then? Will they continue doing surgeries? And if they do, where are they going to be taken after the operation?"
What workers ask for
1. Immediately halt any planned layoffs of registered nurses, caregivers and frontline healthcare workers in our facilities.
2. Assign licensed and unlicensed staff based on the severity of patients' conditions, available resources, and the characteristics of our local patient population, and not on CommonSpirit's standardized national “productivity” model.
3. Prioritize decisions that improve efficiency and transparency without compromising patient care or our nursing practice.
They warn of effects for residents
RN representation at most CommonSpirit Health facilities in California is provided by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU).
They have been joined in their protest by civic leaders such as members of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board and José Ugarte, candidate for City Council for District 9.
“We are living in times where money is more important than human lives,” declared Dr. Rocío Rivas, of LAUSD. "California Hospital Medical Center must fulfill its mission to provide care and do no harm, especially to children. We demand that pediatric care prevail over profits. Yes, and we are here to defend medical justice for all of our communities. Yes, let's do it! Yes we can!"
For his part, José Ugarte testified that a few months ago his three-year-old daughter was injured and he took her to California Hospital Medical Center to receive emergency care.
"If pediatric services are cut, my daughter would not be able to be treated here; we would have to go all the way to Downey. We have nowhere else to take our children. And this affects not just me, but my entire community here in South Los Angeles: 300,000 residents, a third of whom are under 18 years old. We need our hospitals to remain open," he emphasized.
Who will do the work?
Dr. Zain Khalifeh, a resident physician at the Los Angeles General Medical Center and representative of the CIR (Committee of Interns and Residents) union, considered that the hypothetical closure of the pediatric unit at the California Hospital Medical Center represents a threat not only to the staff, but also to the safety of the patients and to the community they are committed to caring for.
“This hospital is already suffering from staff shortages, and now CommonSpirit wants to eliminate 82 more positions: physical and occupational therapy assistants, unit secretaries, nurse educators and wound care nurses,” Khalifeh said. "On behalf of our community, I want to ask CommonSpirit: Who will do the work? How will the needs of our community be met if they eliminate the staff who provide that essential care?"
The same doctor responded: "When the position of an assistant is eliminated, the nurse has to take on that task on his or her own; the job does not disappear. When the unit secretary is eliminated, someone has to continue answering the phone, managing medical orders and coordinating care... All of this takes time away from essential patient care."
CMCH's plans are also to get rid of in-person interpreters. “How are we going to care for patients who arrive in our emergency rooms or are hospitalized, and how will we maintain delicate conversations in the language they understand if we eliminate the staff who serve as a bridge for that communication?” asked the doctor.
"There was never enough staff, even before these budget cuts. As a doctor, my ability to treat a patient depends on the system I work in. The fewer staff there are to draw blood and perform patient care, the less time I have to use my professional skills to provide that care."
They avoid questions from La Opinion
Given the protest and testimonies yesterday at the California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, this newspaper directed the following questions to Christina Zicklin, spokesperson for CommonSpirit Health.
– Protesters told La Opinión that the staff layoffs will cause a “catastrophe” among the low-income population of downtown Los Angeles if entire pediatric departments are closed due to the layoff of more than 80 nurses (a similar number is planned in the city of Bakersfield). They also stated that there will be people who will die from not receiving adequate care. In that case, who would be responsible?
– Is California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles losing money? If yes, how much money per year? If not, why fire these health professionals?
– When the protesters entered the hospital and located the place where the administrators were holding their meeting, they seemed scared. Why were they allowed to do that?
A hospital spokeswoman provided the following statement: "At California Hospital Medical Center, the safety of our staff and patients is our top priority. We recognize and respect people's right to participate in this morning's demonstration. Hospital operations were not affected by today's event."
