Kaiser Permanente mental health clinicians to go on strike starting Monday

More than 2,000 Kaiser Permanente unionized mental health doctors across Northern California have announced their intention to strike beginning next week.

Health care physicians, consisting of psychologists, therapists, chemical dependency counselors and social workers in Northern California, are striking in response to Kaiser Permanente’s rejection of their proposals aimed at increasing mental health care staff and improve access to care, according to a statement from the National Union of Health Care Workers.

The union, which represents nearly 2,000 of our mental health professionals in Northern California, said Kaiser’s mental health patients face long wait times and doctors have heavy workloads.

Although the hospital system has a Kaiser medical center in Redwood City, unionized workers plan to picket the following locations: Fresno Medical Center, Sacramento Medical Center, San Francisco Medical Center and San Jose Medical Center. The strike will start from 6 am and until 2 pm

“We don’t take strikes lightly, but it’s time to take a stand and get Kaiser to spend some of its billions on mental health care,” said Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Health Care Workers.

“Our members plan to use the tools of a union to get their patients the care they deserve and the parity required by law,” Rosselli added.

Octavia Neal, a decade-old licensed therapist who has been working at Kaiser Redwood City since last year, feels the burden the understaffing has placed on doctors and patients alike.

“Sometimes I have to book patients back-to-back-to-back-to-back twice,” he said. “I don’t have breaks, I don’t have space, I don’t have time to breathe because I’m trying to provide patient care.”

Neal, who feels a deep commitment to his work and his 100+ patients, often finds himself working 12-hour shifts just to keep up with his caseload. In addition to the exhaustion, the long hours have become a burden on her home life.

“I have a three-year-old boy. So the difficulty is that I have to make a lot of decisions between, can I be there for my daughter? Can I be there for my patients? she said. “And that’s a very difficult place to put myself.”

Kaiser Permanente has been negotiating with the union since early 2021, Deb Catsavas, senior vice president of human resources for Kaiser Permanente, said in an emailed statement. NUHW contract expired in September 2021

“We understand that NUHW has unfortunately announced strike plans, a bargaining tactic this union has used every time it has negotiated a new contract with Kaiser Permanente, for the last 12 years of its existence,” Catsavas said. “We are still in active negotiations and are committed to resolving the issues and reaching an agreement.”

According to CalMatters, the number of physicians who have left Kaiser in the past year doubled, from 335 to 668. In one survey, 85% of physicians said they were leaving because they felt their workload was unsustainable and “they didn’t have enough time to complete the work. Another 76% said they were “unable to” treat patients according to standards of care and medical necessity.”

Reflecting on his own experience coming to Kaiser, Neal attributed low staffing levels to lengthy hiring processes that can take months to complete. He, too, was concerned that the pandemic, along with heightened awareness of mental health issues, had increased the demand for care, exacerbating burnout or “compassion fatigue” among doctors.

Since starting at Kaiser, Neal said he’s seen at least one therapist leave each month, often seeking a slower pace and more manageable workload.

“We’re hearing these stories, these narratives from people who are really struggling, and it shocks us,” he said. “We got into this field because we wanted to help people get through some of the darkest parts of their lives. And when I can’t help him with that, or God forbid, I’m part of the problem, because I can’t get him support fast enough, that affects the doctors too.”

Additionally, he said, patients have expressed their own frustrations with the system, including difficulty making appointments or accessing doctors for individual care when they need it.

“I call it ‘therapist fault’ when we don’t have space or can’t make room for a patient just based on my schedule,” he said.

Catsavas said it was “disappointing that NUHW would ask our dedicated and compassionate employees to walk away from their patients when they need us most.”

“We have nothing but appreciation and gratitude for our mental health professionals and the extraordinary care they provide our members,” he said. “We take seriously any threat by NUHW to disrupt care.”

Catsavas also said the hospital system would prioritize urgent and emergency care and continue to provide mental health services in some capacity.

“Some non-urgent appointments may need to be rescheduled for another day or with another doctor,” he said. “Any patient whose appointment may be affected will be contacted directly prior to the appointment date to ensure they receive the necessary care.”

However, for doctors to go on strike is not an easy decision. As working parents, Neal and her husband will have to find care for her daughter. Also, building relationships with patients takes time and you worry about leaving them indefinitely.

“Doing an open strike on mental health is really intense,” Neal said. “The kind of relationships that we build with our clients or patients, that’s not something that someone can just jump into and take control of.”