Cal/OSHA fines Sutter Health’s Alta Bates Summit Medical Center for COVID safety

According to the nurses union, Cal/OSHA issued eight citations in part because the hospital failed to properly isolate patients with COVID-19 and did not give appropriate safety equipment to nurses who worked on the same unit as Janine Paiste-Ponder, an Oakland nurse who died of COVID in July after caring for infected patients. The union said the hospital was fined $155,250.

Sutter Health officials told The Chronicle on Saturday that they disagree with Cal/OSHA’s findings and have appealed the citations.

“None of the findings are specific to the passing of our beloved colleague,” Sutter Health officials said in a statement. “We continue to mourn her loss and are disappointed that her memory is being used for political gain.”

Among the other safety violations that union officials said prompted the Cal/OSHA citations were that the hospital required nurses to reuse N95 masks, failed to implement a plan to control airborne diseases, and did not quickly tell nurses about coronavirus exposures.

“It is heartbreaking Janine had to die before these problems were taken seriously enough for a state investigation,” Mike Hill, chief nurse representative at the Oakland facility said in a statement Friday.

In 2015, Sutter Health agreed to pay $71,275 in fines issued by Cal/OSHA after an investigation found safety violations for handling patients with suspected airborne diseases at the same facility. In that case, Sutter Health also appealed the findings. In a settlement, the hospital agreed to pay half of the fines first issued, and to change its procedures for handling patients with airborne illnesses.