Cal/OSHA Fines Alta Bates $155,000 for COVID-Related Worker Safety Violations

California workplace safety regulators have fined Sutter Health's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center more than $155,000 for COVID-19-related worker safety violations. The hospital has appealed the citations.

The safety citations include failure to provide N95 respirators for some nurses and not ensuring COVID-19-positive patients "did not leave their rooms and walk around" the hospital, according to the Cal/OSHA citation filings from March 17, which were forwarded to KQED by the California Nurses Association.

The citations follow complaints made by nurses after the July 2020 death of a 59-year-old nurse, Janine Paiste-Ponder, who died after contracting COVID-19. She treated COVID-19 patients at the Oakland-based hospital.

Paula Lyn is a recently retired nurse who worked at Summit for decades. She wonders if Paiste-Ponder's death was preventable.

"Sometimes an organization will say they did everything that they could," Lyn said. "But did they?"

In a statement, a Sutter Health spokesperson said they disagree with Cal/OSHA’s findings and have appealed the citation. Sutter Health said none of the findings are specific to Paiste-Ponder's death.

Safety violations also include a failure to implement an aerosol transmissible disease exposure control plan, failure to notify nurses of exposure to COVID-19 in a timely manner and failure to provide proper respiratory protection for nurses carrying out high-hazard procedures on COVID-19-positive patients, among others.

— Holly McDede and Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez