#understaffed

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Sept. 5, 2023

"We are prepared to do whatever it takes, even get arrested in an act of civil disobedience, to stand up for our patients," said one Kaiser Permanente worker.

Dozens of healthcare workers were arrested in Los Angeles on Monday after sitting in the street outside of a Kaiser Permanente facility to demand that providers address dangerously low staffing levels at hospitals in California and across the country.

The civil disobedience came as the workers prepared for what could be the largest healthcare strike in U.S. history. Late last month, 85,000 Kaiser Permanente employees represented by the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions began voting on whether to authorize a strike over the nonprofit hospital system's alleged unfair labor practices during ongoing contract negotiations.

The current contract expires on September 30.

"We are burnt out, stretched thin, and fed up after years of the pandemic and chronic short staffing," Datosha Williams, a service representative at Kaiser Permanente South Bay, said Monday. "Healthcare providers are failing workers and patients, and we are at crisis levels in our hospitals and medical centers."

"Our employers take in billions of dollars in profits, yet they refuse to safely staff their facilities or pay many of their workers a living wage," Williams added. "We are prepared to do whatever it takes, even get arrested in an act of civil disobedience, to stand up for our patients."

Kaiser Permanente reported nearly $3.3 billion in net income during the first half of 2023. In 2021, Kaiser CEO Greg Adams brought in more than $16 million in total compensation.

According to the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, the hospital system "has investments of $113 billion in the U.S. and abroad, including in fossil fuels, casinos, for-profit prisons, alcohol companies, military weapons, and more."

Healthcare workers, meanwhile, say they're being overworked and underpaid, and many are struggling to make ends meet amid high costs of living.

"We have healthcare employees leaving left and right, and we have corporate greed that is trying to pretend that this staffing shortage is not real," Jessica Cruz, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, toldLAist.

"We are risking arrest, and the reason why we're doing it is that we need everyone to know that this crisis is real," said Cruz, who was among the 25 workers arrested during the Labor Day protest.

A recent survey of tens of thousands of healthcare workers across California found that 83% reported understaffing in their departments, and 65% said they have witnessed or heard of care being delayed or denied due to staff shortages.

Additionally, more than 40% of the workers surveyed said they feel pressured to neglect safety protocols and skip breaks or meals due to short staffing.

"It's heartbreaking to see our patients suffer from long wait times for the care they need, all because Kaiser won't put patient and worker safety first," Paula Coleman, a clinical laboratory assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Englewood, Colorado, said in a statement late last month. "We will have no choice but to vote to strike if Kaiser won't bargain in good faith and let us give patients the quality care they deserve."

A local NBC affiliate reported Monday that 99% of Colorado Kaiser employees represented by SEIU Local 105 have voted to authorize a strike.

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[breads-voice]

Unless you have been the sole nurse on a unit (whilst your one colleague is on break) finding a patient with no heart beat, call the crash team and initiate a CPR/resus attempt alone: you do not get to say the NHS has enough nurses.

At the moment, this is a scenario most NHS nurses worry about whilst going to work every day.

For each extra patient a nurse has outside the safe ratio of care, mortality for those patients raises 7%.

Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary’s, solution is that nurses should work harder. We’re already doing the work of 4 nurses, 2 assistants, the cleaner and cook. We are already exhausted.

Patients do not deserve to be treated by exhausted nurses.

Nurses deserve to be able to treat their patients whilst not compromising on self care.

[nando161mando]

"Fast-paced" =

[mbrainspaz]

I think something is wrong with one of my ribs. It hurts. I've only been doing 12-14 hours hard manual labor for 3 days straight I don't know why this would happen

[intelligentchristianlady]

IRS Funding

[This is copied from a NYT article, which is behind a paywall, as are the links.]

Most of us know the I.R.S. from the unpleasant task of filing taxes. The agency processes more than 260 million tax returns and related documents each year, with an annual budget of nearly $14 billion and about 80,000 full-time staff members.

It does much of this work on antiquated systems. A recent Washington Post column depicted a bureaucracy that has not adapted to the computer age and instead has stacks of papers extending into a cafeteria. The agency still uses technology dating back more than a half-century, including devices running a programming language, COBOL, that few coders still know. It typically communicates with taxpayers through snail mail or fax.

Congress has cut the I.R.S.’s budget 20 percent since 2010. That makes it hard for the agency to help Americans file their taxes; it answered fewer than one in 10 calls for help during the 2021 filing season.

The funding shortage also makes it difficult for the agency to collect what the government is owed. The tax gap — the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid — is about 15 percent of all taxes.

The new funding will help address the shortcomings by letting the agency update its systems and hire more people. In total, the I.R.S. plans to recruit 87,000 employees. Many of those new hires will fill jobs left behind by retirees in the coming years, but its work force will expand overall to let it take on more duties in auditing, processing and customer service.

Republicans have cited the planned hires to amplify conspiracy theories about armed I.R.S. agents coming after law-abiding Americans. It’s true that some agents who conduct criminal investigations can be armed, like other law enforcement officials. But only 1 percent of new hires will be in such jobs, which focus on more serious financial crimes, according to the Treasury.

Republicans have also raised concerns that the I.R.S. will use the extra funds to go after conservative groups. The agency did target some right-wing organizations seeking tax-exempt status in the 2010s, but it also used similar tactics against progressive groups.

With the additional resources, the I.R.S. does plan to crack down on people and businesses who don’t pay the taxes they owe.

The question is who the agency will focus on. The Biden administration has said it will target rich tax cheats and ordered the agency not to increase audits on people who make less than $400,000 a year or on small businesses. The administration argues that underfunding led the I.R.S. to reduce audits on wealthy taxpayers in particular, so the new money should aim to close that gap.

The agency has good reason to focus on the rich: They account for the largest share of unpaid taxes.

[brooklynpa-c]

EVERYTIME I CATCH A GLIMPSE AT THE WAITING ROOM TRACKING BOARD

[sucka99]

[tenth-sentence]

Still, by the standards of post-1945 science, the Galton was neither munificently funded nor heavily staffed.

"In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity" - Daniel J. Kevles

[capricioushobbyist]

my FEET HURT and i am ANGRY and i am HUNGRY and one of my coworkers put his two weeks in and NOBODY WANTS TO WORK HERE BECAUSE THE OWNER IS A HARDASS ABOUT WAGES and I will have to close alone FOUR TIMES THIS WEEK and I WANT A SKILLED LABOR JOB WHERE I GET TREATED LIKE I DESERVE BASIC HUMAN DECENCY

[motionlessinone]

Being autistic in retail is the hardest some days. Like i feel so burnt out and overwhelmed today and we are unstaffed. Sometimes i wonder why i don't just quit but I need the money 😭

[nyxvamps]

Personal Post

Why do work places try to guilt you into not calling off sick? my guts are in the toilet but when I call to let you know, almost 5 hrs in advance btw, that I wont be coming in you make it sound like I'm about to push someone's grandma down the stairs. It is not my fault that yall are understaffed and overwork your employee's. And I rarely call off bc I convince myself that I'm not sick so when I do call off, you know it's true. And I worked 8 straight weeks and how much over time the last two weeks. I deserve a day off.

especially since two of our usual 4 people in our area called off on the same day and one of them just went to a concert and we weren't able to get breaks or a lunch that day. (we work in a care facility btw). we were lucky to have someone volunteer to stay for overtime and help us out but still no breaks. and I got pulled to go to the hospital with a person anyways so they were down for the last 2 hrs of our shift. Ugh ugh ugh.

I swear if I walk in tomorrow and they start, "we could have used you yesterday, where were you?" dying. puking every hour on the hour.

[mbrainspaz]

"why do I feel so unstable?" bro you are a sensitive hermit who just spent every waking hour of the last 72 hours managing a whole stable of bad-mannered horses alone in storm/flood conditions while dealing with their insanely rich owners on the side. Give or take 3 hours of watching tiktoks while eating leftovers and drinking whisky.

[palephx]

Now interviewing cabana boys, masseurs, and livery assistance.

[peachesandpoems]

Left for Dead

My record is perfect, you say

My class is the best kept, you say

I am the most prepared, you say

But then I got sick.

Call outs became more regular

Treatment plans put in place.

You tell me how valuable I am and how much you want me to stay

How can you look at me, and let me go

After I confess how bad its become

After you said you’d do anything to support me, like the family we were

After I handed you the accommodations letter, my doctor signed

After begging you that I loved my job

I need my job

Now I can’t afford to live

I can’t afford to survive.

I can’t go to my doctor appointments, 

now that I have no company insurance.

I ration my medications and cut my own dosages

Because you were to understaffed

and I was a liability

[bones-sprouts]

nobody had media literacy on this post so its about my cat now