OAKLAND — Hundreds of striking therapists and other mental health professionals amassed outside the downtown Kaiser Permanente business offices on Friday, the fifth day of a strike to demand that the health care provider boost staffing — just months after medical technicians and housekeepers held their own direct action.
About 2,000 therapists and counselors began their pickets in San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento and Fresno on Monday and have been joined by union supporters from across Northern California since then.
The strike left some patients without immediate access to mental health resources as Kaiser officials warned that “some non-urgent appointments may be rescheduled,” and that it “will continue to prioritize urgent and emergency care.”
The strike is expected to continue next week and comes as the Bay Area sees a surge in health care worker strikes for better wages, working conditions and staffing. This year strikes dealt a blow to services at several Bay Area hospitals, including nurses at Stanford and Sutter Health hospitals and nurses’ assistants, aides and surgical techs at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. Kaiser technicians, phlebotomists and housekeepers also walked out and held a strike back in November.
The strike at Kaiser was spurred by a failed bargaining session that ended last Saturday without a deal between the health care provider and its Northern California psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and chemical dependency counselors. While the union said that it agreed to a wage offer from Kaiser this past weekend, other issues pertaining to staffing and working conditions kept the two sides from striking a deal.
“We’ve picketed all over Northern California this week; now we’re coming together to demand that Kaiser executives stop disrespecting the care we provide, and treating our patients as second class,” said Natalie Rogers, a therapist in Santa Rosa.
In a statement to this news organization, Kaiser Permanente Northern California spokesperson Karl Sonkin said the hospital has worked throughout the week to “ensure that we are able to meet our members’ mental health needs.” Sonkin said despite some cancellations, about half of Kaiser’s patients are receiving their care from mental health community providers who are not involved with the strike.
Union researchers say 20,000 patients could be impacted — since each clinician can have anywhere from six to 10 patients per day — whether because their appointments have been rescheduled or they have to seek care from a new provider.
Kaiser has been reaching out to every patient affected by appointment cancellations and offering another internal care provider or a provider from the health care system’s network of contracted community providers, Sonkin said. He said more than 30% of Kaiser’s clinicians “have been caring for members this week, with more returning each day,” and added that psychiatrists, clinical managers and other licensed clinicians have stepped in to meet with patients needing care.
A union spokesman disputed Kaiser’s assertion of the percentage of therapists who are crossing picket lines and how quickly patients are getting appointments.
“This strike and this disruption to patient care does not need to happen,” Sonkin said. “While NUHW claims it is fighting for increased access to care, its primary demand is for union members to spend less time seeing patients. Our patients cannot afford a proposal that significantly reduces the time available to care for our patients and their mental health needs. We were very close to an agreement last week; unfortunately, union leaders were intent on this strike.”
Sonkin said the health care provider is encouraging the union to “return to the table as we remain committed to reaching a fair and equitable agreement that is good for our clinicians and our patients.”
Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis joined striking mental health care workers in Oakland on Friday. She issued a statement Thursday saying she applauds the strikers’ effort to “shed light on the issues plaguing our mental health care system and to provide patients with the quality care they deserve.”
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