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SAN FRANCISCO — As many as 2,300 health care workers continued their strike Tuesday at nine Northern California hospitals, while the state’s attorney general listened to hearings about whether their employer should be allowed to join the city’s largest charitable care hospital. 

The walkout, which began Monday and is scheduled to last three days, is the seventh such action in recent months aimed at Sutter Health.  

Members of Health Care Workers Union Local 250 of the Service Employees International Union say they’re tired of understaffing and a lack of input. 

The goal is to create staffing committees made up of union members and management to give workers more say in staffing levels and decisions made at Sutter Health-owned hospitals, according to union officials. 

Lillie Mitchell, a 16-year veteran of California Pacific Medical, stood in front of City Hall on Monday holding a union banner that said “Health Care For All.” As an environmental services worker, it’s up to her to keep patients’ rooms clean, but she says that’s impossible to do when she’s forced to clean 27 rooms a day. 

“Hotel workers only have 14 (rooms to clean). We can’t keep up the pace since Sutter came into the picture,” she said.  

“They don’t care about patients. They just fret about money.” 

Mitchell said she also can’t afford to get sick because there’s no one to cover for her, meaning untrained workers will do her job and potentially endanger patients. 

“In oncology, you can’t use certain chemicalstion of two Sutter members. 

San Francisco Public Health Director Mitch Katz said the city’s public health system is willing to come to cash-strapped St. Luke’s rescue. Katz said he’s willing to consider everything from an affiliation to a partnership. 

Striking hospitals include San Francisco’s three California Pacific Medical Center campuses, Alta Bates Medical Center and the Alta Bates Herrick campus in Berkeley, Summit Medical Center in Oakland, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo and Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport. 

On the Net: 

http://www.sutterhealth.org 

http://www.seiu250.org/