Nurses warn Zuckerberg San Francisco General is dangerously understaffed as city confirms first COVID‑19 cases

San Francisco officials told the Government Audit and Oversight Committee on March 5 that they are moving to speed hiring of frontline nurses at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital after unions and dozens of nurses described chronic understaffing, frequent mandatory overtime, workplace assaults and operational strain — and as the city recorded its first confirmed cases of COVID‑19.

"As of November 2019, the hiring time for nurses was calculated to be 165.5 days," Michael Brown, the new director of human resources at the Department of Public Health, told the committee. Brown described bottlenecks across the hiring flow — funding approval, referral issuance, candidate selection and onboarding — and said DPH is forming a dedicated RN hiring team and seeking additional HR staff to process hires faster.

Anna Biaspis, deputy director of employment services at the Department of Human Resources, described a DHR‑DPH project to reduce nurse hiring from roughly 165 days to 90 or fewer. Her plan includes an intensive job‑analysis for 20 specialty areas, an audit to remove procedural bottlenecks, a continuous testing program to refresh eligible lists more frequently and pre‑approved interview panels and questions to accelerate selection.

But nurses and union…