Health care workers at the Alameda County Medical Center rallied Tuesday for higher wages amid contract negotiations, saying they haven’t gotten a raise in more than two years.

The workers have been without a contract since July.

“We’ve lost more nurses than we’ve hired, and we’ve lost workers in radiology and pharmacy because our wages are so out of line with the industry standard,” said Charlie Ridgell, representative of SEIU Local 250.

Management and workers called a truce in September, when the county hospital system scrapped a plan to lay off 10 percent of the workforce, or about 300 people. The medical center includes Highland Hospital in Oakland and clinics in Newark and Hayward.

Instead, workers and management agreed to start a workplace committee to improve efficiencies and patient care at the medical center. Under that agreement, that committee won’t start until the workers get a contract.

Interim CEO Michael Burroughs said the wages could be better. “We agree that industry standard wages are the way we want to go,” he said.

Imaging technicians in the radiology department, for instance, are paid about $8 per hour below other area hospitals. In recent weeks, several of these technicians have been lured to other hospitals with higher wages and signing bonuses, Ridgell said.

The union negotiators put a wage offer on the table last Wednesday and are expecting a response from medical center officials today. The two sides have met three times over the proposed contract.

In the meantime, the hospital system is filling some top vacant positions, notably administrator for John George Psychiatric Pavilion.

Bruce Waldo was hired in March as a consultant to turn around the troubled facility after a physician was allegedly murdered by a patient last November and a patient committed suicide several weeks later.

A federal investigation conducted in February found such serious deficiencies that the medical center was placed on notice that it could lose its federal reimbursements for Medi-Cal and Medicare patients. Those payments account for more than half the medical center’s income and would shut down the hospital system.

A subsequent inspection in August, however, found the situation at John George much improved. That investigation found other problems at Highland Hospital, which the medical center must remedy or it could lose its right on Nov. 10 to be reimbursed for Medi-Cal and Medicare patients.

“We feel that Bruce will not only hold onto the gains we’ve made but will continue down that path of improvements,” Burroughs said.

On Monday night, the board of trustees for the medical center also approved a contract extension for other consultants working at John George through April 30, 2005.

The medical center will pay KB Behavioral Health consultants a maximum of $900,000 total for their services at John George.