WITH UC STRIKE LOOMING, AFSCME DETAILS PATIENT PROTECTION PLAN
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 15, 2013
CONTACT: Todd Stenhouse, [email protected],
(916) 397-1131
WITH UC STRIKE LOOMING, AFSCME DETAILS PATIENT PROTECTION PLAN
UC ADMINISTRATION DECLINED AFSCME INVITATION TO JOIN PATIENT SAFETY CONTINGENCY PLANNING PROCESS BACK IN MARCH
Oakland: With a May 21st Strike amongst 13,000 University of California Patient Care Technical Workers looming next week, AFSCME 3299 today announced a series of protective measures that the union has taken to ensure that emergent medical needs amongst UC patients will be met. In doing so, they also announced that top UC Administrators declined an invitation to participate in this contingency planning process, which was initiated by AFSCME 3299, back in March.
“Our members are exercising their legally protected right to strike because the UC has decided that oversized entitlements for their executives are more important than safe staffing and quality care for the growing numbers of patients walking into UC Hospitals,” said AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “That’s why, as we work to straighten out UC’s misguided priorities, we have also taken steps to ensure that the patients our members have devoted their lives to serving will be protected.”
The Steps AFSCME has taken include:
1. Extensive analysis of UC emergency plans and medical departments, and direct communications with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) detailing how UC can:
- divert care to other area hospitals to ensure the public is served
- empower front-line supervisors to perform additional duties
- reduce patient census
- delay non-emergent and elective surgeries for after the strike
2. Voluntarily exempting members from strike participation–in Respiratory Therapy to cover minimum weekend staffing levels in the NICU, PICU, and Burn Centers systemwide, as well as weekend staffing levels in San Francisco General Hospital.
3. Creation of a Patient Protection Task Force: an extensive list of dedicated patient care workers, who in the case of an emergency stand ready to go to work, take care of the patient, and then come back out to the picket line.
Beginning with a March 18 letter to the University, AFSCME repeatedly requested UC’s participation in planning for patient protection, in the event that the Patient Care Technical Unit’s year long dispute with UC Executives remained unresolved. Each time, UC has flatly refused to consider any such cooperation.
“UC’s utter refusal to cooperate in contingency planning efforts designed to protect the public only expose how disingenuous their claims about patient safety really are,” Lybarger added. “It is no wonder that UC Hospitals are facing whistleblower lawsuits, substandard patient safety ratings, a growing number of citations from state health watchdogs and lagging patient satisfaction surveys—patient care is simply not their top priority, and that needs to change.”
UC’s petition to deny UC service workers the right to sympathy strike with the Patient Care Unit was denied by PERB yesterday. A ruling on the Patient Care Unit is expected soon, though AFSCME has already told PERB that it would support enjoining the select number of workers included in its Patient Protection Plan.
UC Patient Care Technical Workers include Respiratory Therapists, Nursing Aides, MRI Technologists, Licensed Vocational Nurses, Surgical Technicians, Diagnostic Sonographers, Pathology Lab Technicians, Pharmacy Technicians, Hospital Assistants, and many others.
