FRONTLINE UC WORKERS RESPOND TO OUTRAGEOUS UC ASSERTIONS ABOUT STRIKE AFSCME
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 20, 2013
CONTACT: Todd Stenhouse, [email protected],
(916) 397-1131
FRONTLINE UC WORKERS RESPOND TO OUTRAGEOUS UC ASSERTIONS ABOUT STRIKE AFSCME
3299 President Says: “This strike is about the fact that UC is endangering its patients every day with chronic understaffing and reckless cost cutting.”
Oakland – Today AFSCME Local 3299, which represents 13,000 UC patient care technical workers responded to UC’s outrageous claims about the cost and consequences of its planned two day strike, and challenged them to use the funds they are proposing to spend on replacement workers on shoring up the chronic understaffing of UC Hospitals.
“This strike is not just about the next two days—it’s about the fact that UC is endangering its patients every day with chronic understaffing and reckless cost cutting,” said AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “If we don’t stand up to it now, we are inviting disaster when thousands of new patients begin flooding UC hospitals with the onset of the Affordable Care Act in the coming year.”
AFSCME 3299 detailed many of the UC Medical system’s growing problems in a whistleblower report issued back in March. The report includes a chronicle of recent watchdog reports and department of public health citations, as well as first-hand accounts from frontline workers detailing unsanitary facilities, unsecure hospital areas, preventable patient falls, broken equipment, rationing of respiratory care, and a range of other deficiencies.
Read the report here: www.afscme3299.org/putpatientsfirst
Since the report’s release, other problems at UC Hospitals have also come to light. These include:
- A $1.2 Million dollar federal whistleblower settlement charging patient neglect at UC Irvine: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/28/local/la-me-uci-medical-20130328
- UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center receiving its second substandard patient safety rating from a leading health buyer’s group in as many years: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/08/local/la-me-hospital-ratings-20130509
- UC spokesman John Stobo, telling a group of UC Executives on May 3rd that UC’s clinical care services need improvement, citing lagging patient satisfaction and patient outcomes: http://www.uctv.tv/shows/UC-Center-for-Health-Quality-and-Innovation-Welcome-John-Stobo-25096
- The elimination of 300 jobs at UCSF Medical Center—including the lift and turn teams, nursing staff, and pharmacy technicians: http://www.dailycal.org/2013/03/31/ucsf-initiates-layoffs-in-wake-of-whistle-blower-report/
In response to Stobo’s assertions, AFSCME 3299 has released a report documenting how UC is regularly diverting such sums into non-patient care expenditures, and outlined the frontline care investments that could be made with those resources if UC would simply make them a priority.
Read the Report Here: https://afscme3299.org/documents/actions/3299-cost-strike.pdf
“When it comes to patient care, John Stobo is speaking out of both sides of his mouth,” Lybarger added. “One day, he’s threatening to sue the University if they don’t divert more patient care resources into his already bulging pockets. The next day, he’s sounding alarms about declining patient care quality in front of a room full of Medical Center Executives, and attacking frontline providers for standing up to chronic understaffing and reckless cost cutting. UC could take important steps to arrest the growing patient safety risks afflicting its Medical Centers by focusing the resources they are spending on replacement workers, lawyers, and their pr machine on safe staffing and fairness to frontline care providers systemwide. The question is, why won’t they?”
UC Patient Care Technical Workers include Respiratory Therapists, Nursing Aides, Radiologists, Certified Nursing Assistants, MRI Technologists, Licensed Vocational Nurses, Surgical Technicians, Diagnostic Sonographers, Pathology Lab Technicians, Pharmacy Technicians, OR Technicians, and many others.
