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Are you on strike at Kaiser or a supporter of the strike? Get WSWS To give a statement as to why you are fighting or why you support the strike. All comments are kept anonymous.
A strike by 2,000 Kaiser Permanente mental health professionals in Northern California continued into its fourth day Thursday. These are psychologists, therapists, chemical dependency counselors and social workers. Amazing Deteriorating employment conditions in San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento and San Jose for years.
The central issue emerging in the strike is the need for the workers to break out of the isolation imposed by the National Union of Health Care Workers (NUHW) and extend the struggle not only to Kaiser Permanente, but to the entire health care workforce. Medical system.
On Thursday, it was announced that 50 Kaiser mental health professionals in Hawaii will join the strike on August 29 due to insufficient staffing. Yesterday’s report Court news They wrote: “Accreditation of a health giant faces ‘corrective action’ in Hawaii after clinics complain about long wait times for mental health appointments.” Investigators from the National Quality Assurance Committee concluded that these access issues ‘are a risk to patient safety’ and said that ‘Kaiser’s previous efforts to improve access have been largely ineffective.’
This is a welcome development, but it raises the question of why more Kaiser employees were not called. Kaiser has 149,000 health care workers and 16,000 physicians in California. Some 700 Kaiser operating engineers in Northern California Hit him They are still working without a contract for three months last year.
Last November, tens of thousands of Kaiser health care workers, mainly nurses, were poised to go on strike, only for the unions to call it off at the last minute and force Sales contract Sub-inflationary wage increases and no workers’ compensation. At UNAC/UNHCP (United Nurses Association of California/Association of Health Care Professionals), the nurses protested the fight in 2015. Rank-and-file committee Struggle to give new leadership to the struggle outside the union bureaucracy.
There is an opportunity for a strong movement of healthcare professionals against this relentless assault on public health. However, this calls for a fight by healthcare workers to isolate their strike by healthcare unions.
Al B., who is a mental health expert WSWS That “burnout” was consuming his career.
“We can’t provide the care we need,” he said. “We would like to schedule appointments for patients in a timely manner to meet their medical needs, but we are unable to do so. We don’t have enough people, and appointments are three weeks, even a month, or a month and a half. We don’t have enough manpower for it. We don’t have the resources, and we need more. We’re all stretched too thin, and people move too fast.
Many of these professionals have serious mental health problems that require immediate care, including suicidal ideation.
Al explained how busy the staff was. “We’re working non-stop. I mean, there’s no time for anything. You barely get a breather for lunch.”
Another amazing employee is Cindy B WSWS, “Patients’ access to mental health is very poor.” She continued, “People don’t normally see what they need. People can get appointments but it takes a while. The return appointments are four to six weeks, so if someone is in a crisis, that’s not good,” he said.
Profits are a big problem, she said. “We don’t have enough mental health workers. they [Kaiser] He can’t keep them. You can attract them, but they don’t last long. The stakes are very high.” Cindy explained that this was due to work conditions. “There is not enough time. They cannot see the patients when they want to see them. Not a good work environment.
She was also involved 2019 strike. She said “nothing” has changed since then and “it’s actually gotten worse.”
Cindy raised the clinicians’ demand for more time for documentation. They need more “documentation time, better access to appointments and more clinics,” she said. She continued, “The demand has never been higher, but the supply has never been shorter. I don’t think this is necessarily Kaiser specific; I know it’s everywhere.
She pointed to the need to write more CPS (Child Protective Services) reports and the impact the outbreak has had on their working conditions, including more domestic violence cases.
Sarina, another mental health professional, described how difficult it is for anyone except the most serious cases to get help. Speaking of her adolescent patients, she says, “If they’re not suicidal, but they’re not acting, for example; [if] They are so depressed and can’t even go to school, we may not see them for six to 10 weeks because they are not suicidal. So we can’t squeeze them into our schedule.
Sarina then explained to the doctors, “If you want to see the patient, book it on your vacation or book it in your documentation (the time allotted for doctors to document the health of their patients for official status. Objectives)” They are asked to take on extra work without pay, they are completely thin. Sarina continued, “Now We’re adding more patients and then more work… Now we have to work after work, so clinicians are forced to stay outside their office hours to finish their notes.
“We are on fire. Kaiser talks about 200 clinics; They hired 200 and 400 left. The work environment is not sustainable. … We’re not replacing these clinics that are leaving, so patients aren’t getting care—it’s all interconnected. I am very angry about this,” he said. The work environment was so bad, “almost hostile,” she said.
There are many resources available to meet these needs. In the year In 2019, the sum of the top 25 executive salaries at Kaiser Permanente was more than $55 million. California is home to 186 billionaires, and Google founder Larry Page and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are some of the richest people on earth.
Sarina, who went on strike several times during her career, said, “There is not much difference between the last strike and now. I mean, there are small changes, but very little.
All employees WSWS They called for a strike by all Kaiser workers, putting patient care and work environment issues front and center.
Another health care worker, whose name we have changed to avoid anonymity, is Charles B WSWS That a rank-and-file organization fighting for collective action outside the Union would be great. “I really like the idea,” he told us, “of thinking outside of our union, outside of the box, and collaborating with other workers.”
“I think we should all be amazing,” Sarina said. Because, I think, on the whole, the Kaiser system is broken. It’s a billion dollar industry, but they can’t use their resources to help their most urgent patients?”
Sarina said she “absolutely” supports a joint strike with other Kaiser workers. “I think our Bay Area team and the Northern California team are going to strike with other people.”
Al Keyser said Southern California mental health workers “should do the same” and strike. Asked about a rank-and-file movement fighting for collective action, he replied, “That’s a good idea I haven’t thought of yet.”
Another employee, Ashley, said collective action should be taken against the workforce. Different departments are coming up on the same issues we are fighting for. Kaiser will be happy with the situation. I think the more people we have, the more it changes.
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