Hospital workers protested outside the University of California at San Francisco, or UCSF, Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland this past Friday in response to 38 layoffs announced Oct. 6. The rally organized by California Nurses Association, or CNA, and University Professional and Technical Employees, or UPTE, drew about 50 people at peak.
In January, UCSF announced that Children’s Hospital Oakland, or CHO, workers would become full UCSF employees. Multiple employees claimed they were informed via Zoom call by UCSF that the integration would not involve layoffs.
About three months after the integration took effect in July,UCSF terminated 38 positions at CHO, according to a statement from UCSF. The hospital first gained affiliation with UCSF in 2014.
“Patients and families should not have to navigate two separate systems to get the care their children need,” UCSF said in a statement in response to the protest. “That’s why we recently made a change at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals that allows us to direct more resources where they will most directly support the children and families we serve.”
The statement assures that layoffs are not directed at a specific UCSF campus and no programs will be terminated as a result of these changes.
At the rally, Gail Lorenzana, a registered nurse, said staff were told that all inpatient bone marrow transplants were being transferred to San Francisco.
“They claim it’s because there aren’t enough providers to support two inpatient programs,” Lorenzana alleged. “The truth is, these providers left because of the very conditions that UC is creating.”
Lorenzana has been working in the hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplant unit for 14 years. She claimed the “Keep Care in Oakland” campaign began as patients were diverted to San Francisco based on insurance, not care needs.
At the rally, speaker Andrea Alford shared that her 1-year-old daughterreceived two bone marrow transplants at CHO for stage four high risk neuroblastoma, both of which lasted six to seven weeks.
After the transplants, Alford’s family had to live within 30 minutes of the hospital for 100 days. If bone marrow transplants were not performed at CHO, Alford’s family would have had to move to San Francisco.
“To uproot a family at that point in care — when their child’s life is hanging in the balance — is dangerous (and) foolish,” Alford said. “So this is the point at which it starts to be profit over patient, right?”
Physician assistant and protest speaker Erin Esaki was fired Oct. 6, but noted she was reinstated about three days later.
Her layoff was rescinded after her coworkers put together data advocating for her value to the hospital and presented to leadership, according to Esaki.
“Knowing that I get to be back and be here for my patients has been the glimmering hope that I’m holding on to when I’m feeling angry or upset or overwhelmed,” Esaki said.
Multiple protesters claimed that Esaki’s and other layoffs violated UPTE and CNA’s collective bargaining agreements with UCSF, alleging union representatives were denied access to the layoff meetings.
In response, the unions filed cease and desist orders and right to bargain documents, according to Esaki and Aina Gagui, a registered nurse and the CNA chief nurse representative.
UCSF and the University of California Office of the President did not respond to allegations regarding the legality of the layoffs.
“We are here today because we believe in this community, in our patients and in the care that should be available to every child, no matter which side of the Bay they live on,” Lorenzana said.