At a picket line outside the hospital, interventional radiology nurse Erin Johnson says she was born at Dominican and has worked there for 21 years.
"It's slowly moved from patient-centered to more of a profit (focus)—to do more with less," she said.
Chicago-based CommonSpirit runs the hospital and sent layoff notices to more than 20 nurses, coordinators and technicians in June.
Johnson is worried about patient care.
“If they do the cuts, the nurses are gonna have to triage on what's more important," she said.
Several doctors have also recently left over contracts. The hospital has made public assurances that everything is fine. But Johnson’s feeling the effects not just at work, but also as a breast cancer patient.
“ I've had to find an oncologist over at Stanford to get that continuity of care," she said. "I don't have a primary doctor, because there's nobody taking new patients."
She plans to stay at Dominican but says many newer nurses don’t.
Unit coordinator Erica Gutierrez has worked at Dominican for ten years. She received notice this would be her last week.
"Our union is doing everything in their power to try to get answers, but we're at a standstill because our hospital just isn't responding to them," she said.
Gutierrez was planning to start nursing school next month.
"Dominican Hospital was supposed to help me pay for school, and not being an employee of the hospital is going to completely take that away," she said.
Administrators would not respond to questions, but in a written statement said the picket did not affect operations.
