They are frontline workers with top-priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine, but they are refusing to take it.
At St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Tehama County, fewer than half of the 700 hospital workers eligible for the vaccine were willing to take the shot when it was first offered. At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, one in five frontline nurses and doctors have declined the shot. Roughly 20% to 40% of L.A. County’s frontline workers who were offered the vaccine did the same, according to county public health officials.
So many frontline workers in Riverside County have refused the vaccine an estimated 50% that hospital and public officials met to strategize how best to distribute the unused doses, Public Health Director Kim Saruwatari said.
How Brius, California s largest nursing home chain, amassed millions as scrutiny mounted
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Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center respiratory therapists whose skills and training place them squarely in the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic are describing increasingly untenable work conditions as the facility struggles against its capacity to admit and treat COVID-19 patients.
Concerned about urgent safety issues that have so far gone unaddressed as the patient count continues to rise, employees reached out to representatives from the National Union of Healthcare Workers to intervene on their behalf.
“We had a call with therapists over the weekend, who said we need to sound the alarm,” said Barbara Lewis, NUHW’s Southern California hospital division director. “Our members see how bad it is right now. There needs to be a breakthrough because this is not sustainable.”
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center respiratory therapists whose skills and training place them squarely in the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic are describing increasingly untenable work conditions as the facility struggles against its capacity to admit and treat COVID-19 patients.
Concerned about urgent safety issues that have so far gone unaddressed as the patient census continues to rise, employees reached out to representatives from the National Union of Healthcare Workers to intervene on their behalf.
“We had a call with therapists over the weekend, who said we need to sound the alarm,” said Barbara Lewis, NUHW’s Southern California hospital division director. “Our members see how bad it is right now. There needs to be a breakthrough because this is not sustainable.”
Labor activists join to plan the campaign for single-payer / Eric Gordon / PW
This article won a third place Saul Miller Award in the Organizing category at the 2020 Labor Media Awards, presented by the International Labor Communications Association.
LOS ANGELES Is it time to step away from the term “Medicare for all” and start saying “single payer?”
This was one of the issues Mark Dudzic posed to a grouping of labor activists and educators that met at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor headquarters one afternoon last week. Dudzic is the executive of Labor Campaign for Single Payer. Los Angeles was his seventh out of eight California labor council meetings on the subject. He was joined in the presentation by California healthcare advocate Dr. Bill Honigman and local Nurses activist Mari Lopez.
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