Hospital workers protested outside the University of California at San Francisco, or UCSF, Benioff Children\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In January, UCSF announced that Children\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients and families should not have to navigate two separate systems to get the care their children need,\u201d UCSF said in a statement in response to the protest. \u201cThat\u2019s why we recently made a change at UCSF Benioff Children\u2019s Hospitals that allows us to direct more resources where they will most directly support the children and families we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
At the rally, Gail Lorenzana, a registered nurse, said staff were told that all inpatient bone marrow transplants were being transferred to San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey claim it\u2019s because there aren\u2019t enough providers to support two inpatient programs,\u201d Lorenzana alleged. \u201cThe truth is, these providers left because of the very conditions that UC is creating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lorenzana has been working in the hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplant unit for 14 years. She claimed the \u201cKeep Care in Oakland\u201d campaign began as patients were diverted to San Francisco based on insurance, not care needs.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
After the transplants, Alford\u2019s family had to live within 30 minutes of the hospital for 100 days. If bone marrow transplants were not performed at CHO, Alford\u2019s family would have had to move to San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTo uproot a family at that point in care \u2014 when their child\u2019s life is hanging in the balance \u2014 is dangerous (and) foolish,\u201d Alford said. \u201cSo this is the point at which it starts to be profit over patient, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Physician assistant and protest speaker Erin Esaki was fired Oct. 6, but noted she was reinstated about three days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her layoff was rescinded after her coworkers put together data advocating for her value to the hospital and presented to leadership, according to Esaki.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowing that I get to be back and be here for my patients has been the glimmering hope that I\u2019m holding on to when I\u2019m feeling angry or upset or overwhelmed,\u201d Esaki said.<\/p>\n
Multiple protesters claimed that Esaki\u2019s and other layoffs violated UPTE and CNA\u2019s collective bargaining agreements with UCSF, alleging union representatives were denied access to the layoff meetings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UCSF and the University of California Office of the President did not respond to allegations regarding the legality of the layoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d Lorenzana said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hospital workers protested outside the University of California at San Francisco, or UCSF, Benioff Children\u2019s Hospital Oakland this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[13789,13790,13793,10680,13791,13787,13792,13788,143,145,144,492,9217,13785,13786],"class_list":["post-15878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-aina-gagui","tag-andrea-alford","tag-bay","tag-california-nurses-association","tag-erin-esaki","tag-gail-lorenzana","tag-january","tag-keep-care-in-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-october","tag-ucsf","tag-ucsf-benioff-childrens-hospital-oakland","tag-university-professional-and-technical-employees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}