St. Joseph nurses ready to strike: ​‘There’s a lot at stake,’ including patient safety

Nurses like Linda Burbank, an RN at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma for the last 18 years, say they’ve been “devalued and disrespected” for too long.

“Enough is enough,” she insisted in a phone interview with The News Tribune on Thursday, citing what she described as potential patient safety issues at the CHI Franciscan hospital as her biggest concern. She’s not alone.

Since November, St. Joseph’s registered nurses — 1,100 of them, represented by the Washington State Nurses Association — have been working without a contract.