On April 25th, close to five thousand nurses from all branches of Stanford Health Care voted to strike for higher pay and more health benefits. To put this into perspective, five thousand nurses is a combined total of 93% of all nurses working at Stanford.

“I have been working at Stanford for almost 6 years now and never have I seen such a change in the nursing system until now. Us nurses have decided to go on strike to represent ourselves as a whole, ” said an anonymous member of the management of nursing at Stanford.

The strike has been brought to attention ever since April 13th. Stanford nurses are on strike because they want better working conditions, higher-paying wages, and more health benefits. They believe the only way to achieve these goals is to fight for them.

“The nurses’ strike on Stanford has created a lot of division, uncertainty, and fear among the nurses. They are worried about their patients, and at the same time worried about themselves and their families,” said an anonymous Registered Nurse manager at Stanford.

A negative aspect of the nurses’ strike are the many patients left unattended. There are a few nurses not on strike, but with this decision, they have a higher responsibility with more patients to manage.

“Lots of misinformation is happening, especially on social media, which has caused more confusion. Hopefully both sides remember that at the end of the day, it is the patients and the nurses who’ll be in the middle of all of this and suffer,” said an anonymous a working Stanford nurse.

There is no current timetable as to when the strike will come to an end, but every day since April 25th, nurses have been in front of Stanford’s main hospital in Palo Alto holding up signs to represent the change they want in their jobs.