Essential Not Disposable: Regina Deserves Security!

UC San Diego Medical Center has permanently laid off 16 Licensed Vocational Nurses, Medical Assistants, Hospital Unit Service Coordinators, Hospital Assistants, and 1 Storekeeper during a global pandemic. Regina Starks, a Licensed Vocational Nurse at UC San Diego Medical Clinic, was one of the affected workers. “It just doesn’t make sense to be laid off when my community needs us the most. There’s work to be done. We’re fighting a deadly virus.”

Regina has worked at UC for the past 10 years.  When she first arrived, she was relieved to finally have a job with good benefits and a secure future. But, four months after being hired, the unthinkable happened when her husband of 18 years suddenly passed. A pillar of security had been pulled from under her, “I always felt safe and secure knowing that I had someone to lean on in a time of hardship, but when I lost my husband I no longer felt safe and secure. Having a stable UC job soon became my security.”

Despite strong hospital revenues, receipts of hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal Coronavirus Relief funds, and more than $10 billion in unrestricted cash reserves, UC, a $40 billion institution, has decided to lay off frontline workers. The layoffs are expected to save the UC system a total of 0.00005% of its total operating budget. Meanwhile, it just gave it’s new system-wide President a $300k/year raise over his predecessor.

“For the past nine years I’ve been doing life alone,” Regina said, “I’m the sole breadwinner of my home and I’m not going to give up on my job. I will fight for what is right, what is fair, and what I believe in!  UC needs to do right by us! Don’t lay us off during such an insecure time. Frontline heroes deserve security!”