Mental health care workers will risk arrest to protest Kaiser Permanente’s neglect and denial of patient care during LA’s mental health crisis linked to the recent wildfires. Strike over a lack of resources and time with patients continues.
Los Angeles, Calif – Striking Kaiser Permanente mental health workers, members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, will travel from picket lines across Southern California Friday and risk arrest to stage a mass noontime protest in the streets outside Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center, joined by elected, labor and community allies.
WHO/WHAT: Mass street protest by striking Kaiser mental healthcare workers
WHEN/WHERE: Noon, Friday, February 7, street outside hospital, 4867 W. Sunset Blvd., L.A.
(Protests begin at 11:30 a.m.)
Kaiser was failing its 4.8 million subscribers in Southern California prior to the current strike by mental healthcare workers that is now in its 4th month. The giant HMO which provides behavioral health care for 4.8 million people in L.A. and from Bakersfield to San Diego, was fined $50 million in 2023 for mental health violations that included excessive appointment wait times due to the understaffing of mental health services.
Sixteen weeks ago, 2,400 Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists, psychologists, social workers and psychiatric nurses went on strike in Southern California demanding more time for patients and additional resources for those seeking mental health services. Kaiser has cancelled large numbers of appointments during the strike and been called out by state legislators for the practice. That was before the recent surge in demand linked to the fires.
Despite having financial reserves totaling $60 billion and a surge in demand for services linked to the recent fires, Kaiser management has refused to provide its Southern California mental health workforce with the same amount of patient care time as their counterparts in Northern California and the same retirement benefits as nearly every other Kaiser employee.
The healthcare provider is seemingly in no hurry to get patients needed services. After a bargaining session scheduled for Presidents’ Day, Kaiser’s negotiators do not intend to return to the bargaining table until March 6. Meanwhile, Kaiser patients in Southern California struggle for care:
- Patients who want to retain their therapists have been placed on 30-day appointment waitlists even though Kaiser is required to provide medically necessary follow-up appointments within 10 business days by law.
- Kaiser has canceled psychotherapy groups for thousands of patients including mothers with postpartum depression and people with substance use disorders.
- Kaiser has violated industry standards by sending patients with severe conditions to an outside virtual provider that is only capable of treating patients with mild-to-moderate conditions.
“We’re four months into a strike, and Kaiser is acting like its mental health services are fine, when it was cited for severe understaffing and illegally long wait times before the strike began,” NUHW President Emeritus Sal Rosselli said. “This is a crisis of Kaiser’s own making, and we aren’t going to rest until Kaiser gets serious about treating mental health care and the people who provide it as equals in the Kaiser system.”
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The National Union of Healthcare Workers is a member-led movement that represents 19,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawai’i, including more than 4,700 Kaiser mental health professionals.
