About 60 healthcare professionals gathered at Luskin Turnaround on Wednesday morning to protest patient overcrowding at UCLA’s on-campus hospital. 

Members of the California Nurses Association, Committee of Interns and Residents and University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119 – which represents healthcare, research and technical professionals – gave speeches calling on the University to address alleged overcrowding issues in the emergency department at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The demonstration began outside of the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center at 7:30 a.m, with protesters entering the building to give public comment at the UC Board of Regents’ bimonthly meeting at 8:30 a.m.

Protestors held signs reading “Put Patients over Profits” and “Protect Our Patients” while chanting, “Safer staffing now.”

Dr. Hannah Spungen, an emergency medicine physician, said she attended the protest to raise awareness about the impact of boarding – or holding people in the ER after they’ve been admitted to the hospital because of a lack of available beds –  on patients and staff.

“When patients come to the ER, they sometimes need to wait for hours outside in tents in the parking lot, because the ER is so full of admitted patients waiting for beds upstairs,” said Spungen, an assistant professor in UCLA’s emergency medicine department. “Patients then spill out into the hallways and tents because there is nowhere else for them to go.” 

A UCLA Health spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the hospital has plans in place to prioritize patients in need of emergency care and expand capacity for patients awaiting admission. Hospitals nationwide are facing increases in admits, the spokesperson added.

“Our hospitals operate in compliance with mandated nurse-to-patient staffing levels,” the spokesperson added in the statement. “Patient and staff safety are always our highest priority, and we continually monitor and make appropriate operational adjustments to meet California Department of Public Health requirements.”

Spungen alleged in a speech that overcrowding issues have led the hospital to set up several indoor and outdoor tents for ER patients. Only one tent was needed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she added. 

“Imagine you’re having the worst day of your life, a medical emergency, and you choose to go to one of the top hospitals in the country,” Spungen said. “You expect that if you were to receive bad news, that would happen within the confines of a private space where we can maintain your privacy and dignity. Instead, you lay outside in a metal chair in a tent in a parking lot outside one of the top hospitals in America.”

Melinda McMahon, a member of the CNA, said in a speech that she believes patient overflow into the ER is impacting the hospital’s quality of care. McMahon added that treating patients in the open violates patients’ privacy and dignity.

“Medically-vulnerable, immunocompromised patients, those fighting for their lives on chemo, are placed in close proximity to patients with infectious diseases,” McMahon alleged in a speech.

Amy Cohen, a third-year labor studies student, said they attended the protest to show solidarity with UCLA’s healthcare workers.

Protesters entered the UC Board of Regents meeting after hearing speeches to demand better hospital conditions from the regents. 

Diane Sposito, a registered nurse at the medical center, read the regents a list of seven demands, including the provision of executive-level oversight of boarding, fully staffed X-ray and CT scan services, and enforced response time standards.

Dr. Krithika Rao, a chief resident of emergency medicine at UCLA, said the three unions sent letters to UC leadership about the overcrowding issue. Rao added that hospital employees also created an internal petition that amassed more than 1,000 signatures urging administrators to address the boarding crisis. 

“The biggest ask that we’re still waiting on is the creation of a hospital throughput committee that is permanent to look at ways that we can make boarding better, in the sense of making sure that we can figure out how to get patients out of the hospital more quickly,” Rao added. “We have solutions to this problem, but no one’s listening to us.” 

Contributing reports by Izzy Greig and Shaun Thomas, Daily Bruin staff