Rolling County Strike Hits King/Drew Hospital Patients

The county service workers’ rolling strike assumed a threatening new character Thursday, as patients were turned away from Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center when much of the hospital’s staff walked out to protest staffing shortages and pay.

The South Los Angeles hospital’s trauma unit, the second busiest in the county, was closed, as were numerous clinics. Low-income patients who had waited months for appointments and kept them despite the transit strike were turned away for lack of staff.

“What am I supposed to do?” asked Karen Curry, a 42-year-old multiple sclerosis patient who waited six months for an intestinal examination. “I still hurt and nobody’s here to take care of me.”

As a skeleton crew of doctors and nurses struggled to deliver services and deal with emergencies, county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen blasted Service Employees International Union Local 660 for its one-day walkout at King, the first of four public hospitals it will strike in the coming days.

“Holding hostage services for millions of L.A. County residents, including medical care, is not going to lead us to accept union demands that we believe are fiscally irresponsible,” Janssen said as the sixth day passed without negotiations between the county and its largest union.

The union had made an overture about resuming negotiations Wednesday, but the county says it will not return to the table unless next week’s planned countywide strike is canceled. Things did not look more promising Thursday, as Local 660 filed an unfair-labor grievance, accusing county managers of trying to intimidate strikers.

“At this point, it looks like we’re heading for a collision,” Local 660 Assistant General Manager Bart Diener said.

The idea of a prolonged strike galled some patients at King/Drew, who nonetheless said they supported the medical staff’s demands.

“Why don’t the politicians come down here and be sick and see how important it is?” Curry said, as she waited for a ride. “Tell them to come down here and stand here hurting. They have money; they can buy someone, but us poor people are being told to go away, like you shoo a fly.”

Local 660 represents 47,000 county workers, ranging from nurses earning $50,000 annually to clerks making less than $20,000. Most if its members earn $32,000 a year or less.

The county has offered raises of 9% over three years, which have already been accepted by other unions, including those representing sheriff’s deputies and firefighters. Local 660 is demanding 15.5%, saying that would bring its members’ pay back to its inflation-adjusted 1990 level. Their pay was frozen for four years during the economic downturn.

But the Board of Supervisors says it cannot afford the $97 million that such an increase would cost, especially considering a looming $184-million deficit in its health department.

Pay was on the minds of many medical workers picketing at King/Drew and several public clinics in the area. But they also had another complaint: inadequate staffing that they say can leave one nurse caring for 10 patients.

“One registered nurse cannot take care of those patients,” said Curtisteen Aisuan, an eight-year veteran of King/Drew nursing. “Something is going to go awry here--and it does all the time.”

Aisuan also was concerned about economic issues. “I was going to school five years out of my life [for her nursing degree] and there’s no reason I should be making $35,000,” she said.

Many on the boisterous picket line cited the supervisors’ own recent $15,000 raises--granted by the state--in their call for more money.

The strike began at 10 p.m. Wednesday: Half of the overnight shift, including 116 of 141 nurses, did not report for work. While workers marched outside, patients piled up on gurneys outside the emergency room.

By 1:30 a.m. more than a dozen patients were lined up wall-to-wall and in the hallways waiting.

Dr. Jeff Wade pointed to one man curled up on a gurney. The man had gallstones and might need surgery, but had been waiting for nearly 12 hours because there was no staff to attend him, Wade said.

Many doctors--both the staff doctors who recently unionized and interns and residents who have long been organized--stayed on the job through the morning, wearing yellow union stickers that read: “Long hours are bad medicine.”

“Patient care is my main objective,” said Dr. Charles Vaughn, who wore a union sticker. “I support” the union demands, he said, but “I’m not going to strike.”

Still, at noon doctors walked out for a rally and did not return to work, joining the picket lines--with their beepers still close in case of an emergency inside. The doctors union is in mediation with county negotiators over a proposed cut in physicians’ benefits.

Correspondent Gina Piccalo contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Strike Schedule

A series of one-day strikes throughout Los Angeles County began Monday. The following are the departments that will be affected and the days the walkouts are planned:

Today

* Harbor / UCLA Medical Center

* South-coastal cluster of county health centers

Saturday

* Beaches and harbors (workers who maintain beaches and restrooms)

Tuesday

* County-USC Medical Center

* Olive View Medical Center

* Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center

* High Desert Medical Center

* Department of Health Services

* Northeast cluster of county health centers

* Coroner’s office

Wednesday

Countywide strike

MTA Talks Resume

Talks between striking bus drivers and the MTA resumed, with the two sides still at odds over the agency’s future direction. Management called the union’s formal contract offer “a step backward.” B2