DANIEL WONG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Marina
Sheinberg, assistant to the vice provost of hospital
systems, talks to a crowd of UCLA Medical Center employees on Aug.
15.
By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff
Union members assembled in front of the Jules Stein Eye
Institute and filed into the UCLA Medical Center on Aug. 15 to
protest understaffing throughout the campus.
“This is a struggle to have a voice in staffing, for every
worker and every patient,” said Grant Lindsay, an organizer
for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees. “We’re asking that the university listen to
the concerns of workers.”
About 30 Medical Center workers who are AFSCME members as well,
walked into the building armed with a survey they conducted of
union members, expressing dissatisfaction with hospital
understaffing.
The survey, polled from AFSCME members working in the Westwood
and Santa Monica UCLA medical centers, said 68 percent of workers
feel they are assigned more work than is possible to complete. It
also said 49 percent feel patient care has been hurt due to
understaffing.
But Mark Speare, senior associate director for patient relations
and human resources for the Medical Center, said that patient
satisfaction has improved steadily over the years.
“We benchmark our staff levels against the rest of the
industry, and we’re keeping with the industry norm, if not
richer. This would suggest that we’re not
understaffed,” he said on Aug. 17.
As the band of protesters went inside to demand a meeting with
Michael Karpf, director of the Medical Center and vice provost of
hospital systems, they chanted “no short staffing.”
Karpf was not available, and after a brief discussion with his
assistant in which they expressed disappointment with the
administration’s lack of response, the protesters left the
building peacefully.
However, the protesters said they would release the survey to
patients in the Medical Center if a meeting is not scheduled with
Karpf soon.
The event was just one example of a struggle for understanding
between AFSCME and the hospital’s administration. AFSCME
representatives said lack of staffing at the Medical Center has led
to neglect in areas such as housekeeping, with negative effects on
patient care.
According to AFSCME members, unit service associates ““
workers that handle a variety of tasks ranging from housekeeping to
serving food ““ have been given an increased workload without
any increase in pay or assistance.
As a result, AFSCME says, sanitation and decontamination
aren’t being properly maintained.
“Because of short staffing, workers often have to catch up
with decontamination tasks left over from the night before,”
Lindsay said.
“A patient will then have to wait longer to get a room,
which will be less clean than it could be, and could affect a
patient’s recovery,” he continued.
Medical Center representatives say plans for increasing staff
are in place. According to university officials, the hospital will
implement a new staffing model in September that will increase the
number of USAs as well as decrease their workload.
Speare said that USA staff is undergoing a process in which
their tasks and responsibilities would become more specialized.
Currently, a USA performing housekeeping may do other jobs
simultaneously, like escorting patients, distributing supplies and
serving meals. Speare said that shifting between these roles is not
efficient, and the administration is heading toward a specialized
work force.
“In this new model, we end up adding employees,”
Speare said.
In the current model, 101 full-time equivalent staff performs
the general duties mentioned above. The new model will include 90
full-time employees in housekeeping and add five patient escorts,
six supply workers, and 13 clinical care partners who have direct
patient interaction and who provide nurse support.
Therefore, according to Speare, while housekeeping loses 10
staffers, under the new model there is a net gain of 13 workers. In
addition, none of these workers would be obligated to perform tasks
outside of their specialization.
“The first reaction is to interpret what we’re doing
as less than the current staffing pattern, but that is not the
case,” he said.
Workers involved in the redistribution of staff will not be
adversely affected.
“Employees involved in this reorganization will retain
their current classification and salary, with opportunities to
participate in future training programs to allow for career
development,” said Frances Ridlehoover, chief operating
officer of UCLA hospital systems.
“As an integral driver of this plan, the hospital is
adding AFSCME staff members to enhance its patient care
services,” she said, adding that the plan will be implemented
on Sept. 4.
AFSCME members said they are still not satisfied with the
response they have received from the university regarding
understaffing. They continue to cite instances where poor staffing
has led to negative effects on patient care.
“The rooms are not clean. Sometimes we lack the staff to
get the room ready or to solve patient complaints,” said
Maria Morales, a care partner at the Medical Center, adding that
she has had to discharge or transfer patients because of poor
sanitation conditions.
Speare said the claim was unfounded and that an instance where a
patient was transferred because of dirty conditions was unheard
of.
AFSCME is also fighting to increase union representation in
departmental meetings as well as gaining employee input in the
hiring of new staff.
“Employees need to be able to have a say particularly when
it comes to hiring staff because they know best. They’re the
ones who have the most direct contact with patients,” said
AFSCME organizer Brian Rudiger.
Speare expressed interest in this proposal, saying it is
something that should be considered.
“Staff and managers are the best recruiters an
organization can have,” he said. “This is something I
would want to know more about.”
With reports from Shauna Mecartea and Marcelle Richards, Daily
Bruin Senior Staff.