NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
July 7, 2017 | PAGE 7
Kaiser Permanente nurses warn of short staffing
Union members, frustrated with
deadlocked staffing committees,
say short-staffing could diminish
patient care.
By Don McIntosh
Nearly 1,000 employees of
Kaiser Permanente’s Northwest
Region have signed a petition
raising concerns about under-
staffing — and calling on the
health maintenance organization
to hire additional staff. The pe-
tition was circulated by Oregon
Federation of Nurses and Health
Professionals (OFNHP) Local
5017 and signed by 803 of its
members and nearly 200 other
employees, including members
of other unions at Kaiser.
OFNHP is an affiliate of Amer-
ican Federation of Teachers.
Taped together and unfurled
at a highly visible June 21 rally
on the corner of Northeast
Grand Avenue and Multnomah
Street outside Kaiser North-
west’s Portland headquarters,
petition sheets stretched 70 feet
long at two-and-a-half feet high,
and took 10 people to hold them
up. OFNHP leaders rolled up
the petitions, wrapped them in a
bow, and headed inside to pres-
ent them to Kaiser top brass.
But the union had no appoint-
ment to see the health system’s
executives, and coming at lunch
time, they found that Kaiser
Northwest region president An-
drew McCulloch, patient safety
vice president Janet O’Halloren,
and HR vice president Frank
Hurtarte had all gone to lunch.
“Whether they are willing to
climb out from under the lunch
table or not, I think they got the
message,” OFNHP Local 5017
President Adrienne Enghouse
told about 100 rally participants
back on the street.
“Our patients complain about
long waits for care and our
coworkers are reaching a break-
ing point,” the petition reads.
“We understand that Kaiser ex-
pects to add 30,000 new mem-
bers in 2017. … Kaiser must
hire sufficient frontline staff to
address this spike in patient vol-
ume.”
Local 5017 spokesperson
Megan Hise says a trend toward
“lean” staffing is pervasive in
the health care industry, but
OFNHP wants Kaiser to be a
leader, setting a standard for ad-
equate staffing levels.
In its Northwest Region,
which extends from Eugene to
Longview, Kaiser is the most
unionized and some might say
To protest short staffing at Kaiser
Permanente, a June 21 rally drew
members and staff from OFNHP and
two other Kaiser unions, United
Food and Commercial Workers
(UFCW) Local 555 and Service Em-
ployees International Union (SEIU)
Local 49, as well supporters from
Portland Jobs with Justice. Left,
Kaiser nurse (and OFNHP president)
Adrienne Enghouse holds the bull-
horn as members hold up taped-to-
gether petition sheets signed by
nearly 1,000 Kaiser employees. The
petitions were then rolled up and
tied with a bow, right.
“Saving lives is our daily mission,” declared UFCW Local 555 member JoAnn
Grugan (above) at a June 21 rally outside Kaiser Permanente headquarters.
“And safe staffing saves lives.”
most beloved health insurer/
provider by local unions — for
offering affordable high-quality
care that saves money for union
health and welfare trusts and
union employers, and for keep-
ing union members healthier
than they might be at other
providers. Kaiser has also had
the least contentious labor rela-
tions of any health system in the
region. A national coalition of
unions representing 115,000
Kaiser workers is now 20 years
into an official “Labor-Manage-
ment Partnership” with Kaiser,
in which unit-based teams of
workers and managers collabo-
rate to reduce waste and im-
prove the workplace.
“We have a great opportunity
to serve even more Kaiser mem-
bers in the region — if we staff
up,” said organizer Gabriel
Erbs, who works with OFNHP
members at Kaiser’s new West-
side Medical Center in Hills-
boro. “At the end of the day, our
working conditions are patients’
healing conditions.”
Erbs says understaffing at
Westside is causing longer waits
for planned appointments, par-
ticularly among respiratory ther-
apists and in the operating room,
where Kaiser is extending
hours, adding new types of sur-
gery, and increasing the case-
load — without adding more
staff.
At the rally, United Food and
Commercial Workers Local 555
member JoAnn Grugan, a spe-
cial procedure technologist at
the Sunnyside Cath Lab, said
half the nurses in her department
have left in the past two years
due to overwork.
“We’re losing experienced
nurses and bringing in inexperi-
enced nurses,” Grugan said.
“That reduces patient care.”
Deadlocked staff committees
OFNHP’s collective bargaining
agreements with Kaiser aren’t
set to expire until September
2018. But the disagreement that
motivated OFNHP members to
gather outside Kaiser HQ isn’t
taking place at the bargaining
table. It’s taking shape within
hospital safe staffing committees
that were set up under a 2015
Oregon law that Oregon Nurses
Association, OFNHP’s sister
union, helped to pass. That law
requires each hospital to form a
committee to draw up a plan for
minimum nurse staffing levels in
each unit — in order to ensure
adequate patient care and safety.
The plans were supposed to be
The petition, signed by nearly 1,000 Kaiser employees: “Our patients complain
about long waits for care and our coworkers are reaching a breaking point …
Kaiser must hire sufficient frontline staff to address [a] spike in patient volume.”
developed by January 2017, but
no plans have yet been agreed to
for any Kaiser hospital.
The committees are com-
posed equally of frontline nurses
and nurse managers, and at
Kaiser and elsewhere, that’s
leading to deadlock.
Enghouse, the OFNHP presi-
dent, says at the March 2 meet-
ing of Sunnyside Medical Cen-
ter’s staffing committee, nurse
manager Tonya Roth said the
hospital would not consider any
staffing plan that calls for an in-
crease in staff. That provoked an
immediate reaction from the
frontline nurse members of the
committee.
“I said, ‘That is totally inap-
propriate for you to say,” Eng-
house said.
On June 8, labor-side com-
mittee members wrote to the
Oregon Health Authority to
complain about Roth’s state-
ment, and to protest delays in
approving the hospital’s staffing
plan.
Kaiser, for its part, made it
clear there are two sides to the
story.
Understandably enough, the
non-profit health provider would
prefer to discuss proper staffing
levels in the staffing committees,
and not in the newspaper, said
Kaiser Northwest spokesperson
Mike Foley.
But Foley did email the fol-
lowing statement, reprinted here
in its entirety:
“H
ospital leadership and staff are working
together on nurse staffing plans. Patients
and members are at the center of our Value
Compass, which guides Kaiser Permanente’s de-
cisions and operating strategy. Patient safety is
always a top priority. Our hospitals are nationally
recognized for safety. For example:
■ “A” patient safety ratings for KSMC and
KWMC from the Leapfrog group in 2016
and Spring 2017. Sunnyside achieved
Leapfrog’s Top Hospital Recognition for
2016.
■ Sunnyside named one of America’s 100
Best Hospitals by Healthgrades, placing it
in the top 2% of nearly 4,500 hospitals
nationwide. KSMC earned 8 quality award
distinctions from Healthgrades in the last
12 months.
■ Highest rating for KPNW from the Society
of Thoracic Surgeons for seven consecutive
years. ”
As for OFNHP, they’re going
to try again to deliver those
signed petitions. Word is that
Kaiser’s national CEO, Bernard
Tyson, will be attending the
groundbreaking ceremony for a
new clinic in Beaverton June 23,
and nurses hope to be able to
present it to him while he’s in
town.