Staff, Patients Protest Conditions at Canoga Park Health Center

Saying that they are fed up with falling ceiling tiles, ankle-deep water in the X-ray room, overflowing toilets, piles of files and clusters of cockroaches, doctors, nurses and other employees and patients picketed the county health center in Canoga Park on Thursday.

The union that organized the picketing for 30 minutes during lunchtime said it was the first of what will be weekly demonstrations until county officials remedy long-standing complaints.

“The employees are going to be out here each week until the county gets embarrassed enough about it,” said Michael Pirkkala, a business agent for the Service Employees International Union. The union represents about 40,000 county health care providers, including 30 clerks, nurses and others at the Canoga Park center.

The union plans to picket county health care facilities in Burbank, San Fernando and Pacoima because they are operating under similar conditions, he said. No dates for the actions have been determined, he said.

The center’s doctors, nurses and clerical workers said complaints of deteriorating conditions have mostly been ignored by the county Department of Health Services for years. They voiced frustration over lack of space, privacy and cleanliness and said it embarrasses them to treat patients in such a facility.

County health officials have acknowledged for years that conditions at the Canoga Park clinic are among the worst in the San Fernando Valley. The facility has lingered for many years on the county’s priority list of centers requiring new buildings. But a chronic lack of money prevents improvements in the crowded and dilapidated clinic, officials have said.

Some nurses said lack of money should be no excuse. They cited the X-ray room, where a leaky ceiling leaves up to three inches of water on the floor on rainy days. It takes a week for some X-ray equipment to completely dry, they said. When the air-conditioner breaks down, pregnant women and other patients sometimes faint in the small, hot clinic, nurses said.

Nurse Olga Parsons said a patient was narrowly missed by a falling ceiling tile. “If the patient had been standing over to the right, the tile might have bopped her over the head,” Parsons said.

“We feel embarrassed,” she said. When patients enter some clinic rooms, she said, “I pray, please don’t let them look.”

A toilet regularly leaks and jams, spreading a foul odor through the center, they said, blaming the janitorial service for inadequate cleaning jobs.

Each month, the center serves about 4,000 patients from the West Valley. Because of a lack of office space, the center’s growing workload is reflected in the boxes of files and supplies stacked on desks and blocking exits.

There is no place for an isolation room to examine children with infectious diseases, so they must be examined in the parking lot, said Dr. Jagdish Singh, a pediatrician.

“Aren’t these people human beings or are they Third World citizens?” she asked. “We’re not asking too much. We’re asking for basic things, normal hygiene. All of the people at the clinic are very, very nice people. But the environment is making them cranky.”

The county, however, has been trying to improve conditions at the Canoga facility, said Dr. Dorris Harris, area chief of clinics in the North County region.

The leaky roof, for instance, will be replaced this summer, she said.

County health officials also have discussed the staff’s grievances with the private janitorial service that has been cleaning the clinic for about a year. In previous years, county employees cleaned the facility, but the Board of Supervisors has been attempting to contract out as many county jobs as possible to private industry. The board maintains that private companies can provide better and cheaper service.

Harris said there is little that can be done about crowding. The clinic was built decades ago when public health centers were sleepy places that mostly administered immunization shots to children. Today, the clinics are overwhelmed by poor patients who have no place else to turn for their health needs, except a county emergency room.

“It’s always congested, it’s always been small,” Harris said. “We have tried to do our level best. . . . it gets to the point where it’s difficult.”

Some of the center employees and clients said they had muted their complaints because they feared the facility would be closed.

But they spoke out during the picketing. At least a dozen center patients walked with about 25 health care providers. Some held signs stating “Dignity and respect for the people we serve” and “Understaffed equals underserving.”

Rodolfo Gutierrez, who said he tries to arrive at the clinic early to escape sweating in the heat of the packed waiting room, joined the protesters with his 7-year-old son.

“They treated me fair,” he said of the center’s workers. “They’re real nice people, they care about the public. It’s fair for me to go out with them.”