SANTA MONICA – Maria Torres, a surgical technologist in the Santa Monica Surgery Center, said it’s hard for her to continue working with UCLA despite loving her 19 years of experience here because of a lack of respect and appreciation.

“We just want things to be fair for us,” she said. “Without all of these people in different services, the hospital can’t operate. It takes much more than just surgeons, doctors and nurses to operate such a big, big corporation.”