Many just walked out of the pharmacy because they had a complaint about it
The COVID-19 Nurses’ Pain at Kaiser During the Three Day Strike: Implications for the Labor Forces, Pay and Salaries
The three-day strike would hit hospitals, clinics and medical offices from California and Colorado to Washington D.C. Tens of thousands of workers — including nurses, lab technicians, pharmacists and therapists — would walk off the job.
Lucas was concerned about understaffing before the COVID-19Purge. She said Kaiser executives “kicked the can down the road” when the US was hit by the Pandemic.
With better pay and work conditions, they say, more people would be incentivized to stay at Kaiser. It would also attract newer workers — all of which would help alleviate the staffing shortage.
Pamela Reid, an optometrist at Kaiser’s Marlow Heights Medical Center in Maryland, said wait times for an appointment in her department ranged from five to 10 business days before the COVID-19 pandemic. But now, patients often have to wait two months, she said.
A pay raise of 25% for all of its members is one of the things the coalition is pushing for.
Kaiser has offered raises ranging from 12% to 14%, according to the unions. Kaiser has refused to renew protections for outsourcing, according to the unions.
Lucas said that the organization doesn’t take into account the thousands of workers who leave. Kaiser, she added, needs to raise wages to give people a reason to stay.
Lucas said some employees of Kaiser work more than 50 hours a week and that the job needs to be filled. They can’t make their bill payments at the end of the week.
She has moved up through the ranks over the course of 21 years at Kaiser. El-Amin has held several positions in the Washington D.C. area, from technician and outpatient pharmacist to acute care clinic pharmacist.
She started to notice changes when the COvid-19 epidemic hit the US in 2020. That’s when the place where she built her career no longer seemed to have her back.
In the early days of the disease, El-Amin said understaffing negatively affected her mental health. She wasn’t sure how many technicians would call out of work, and how much stress she’d be under to still meet quota, despite having less support.
One week after a large walkout forced at least a dozen stores to shut down in the Kansas City area, CVS is promising changes. But another round of pharmacists’ walkouts got widespread attention Wednesday.
The Nebraska Pharmacy Association said that the reportunderscores the issues of insufficient staffing, excessive metrics, and harassment. Most of the harassment cases that were reported in the report identified the harassers as managers and/or supervisors, not customers.
Many of the problems found in the Virginia Beach store are mirror issues. There were a number of problems related to the safe handling of drugs, which resulted in a $470,000 fine. The investigation’s results were found to be disagreeable, according to the report.
In that case, pharmacists warned that the problems extended far beyond one store, similar to how the current complaints are said to extend beyond Kansas City.
The group said thatCVS is being stuck in massive prescription back ups. It accused CVS Caremark, the corporation’s pharmacy benefit manager subsidiary, of “cherry-picking” patients and steering them away from other pharmacies. The association alleged that this has put patients and pharmacists in a terrible situation.
In the U.S. health care system, companies known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, act as a go-between for insurance providers and drug makers. PBMs were started in the 1960s to help employers and insurers buy prescriptions, as NPR has reported.
Two senators have introduced a bill that aims to reform the pharmacy benefit management system, which they claim would bring down prices and boost competition.
The Modernizing and Ensuring PBM Accountability Act would make sure that senior citizens in rural areas have access to the pharmacy of their choice according to another sponsor, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.
The Kansas City CVS Demonstration Rejoinder: “We’re all here for a reason,” tweeted a Kansas City protester
CVS has cut back on staffing, including less time for technicians to assist pharmacists, even as the demand for prescriptions and vaccines grow, the protesters say. CVS announced plans at the start of this year to cut or shift hours at thousands of its pharmacies.
According to the Kansas City Star, a pharmacy tells them that it’s like running a Mcdonald’s with just one person.
A Facebook page run by a pharmacist who has relayed messages from Kansas City protest organizers posted a fairly positive response from the group, saying the new CVS regional leader has reached out and the company is promising better conditions, including adding more paid work hours to meet demand, hiring more staff, and reducing vaccination goals.
CVS Executive Vice President Prem Shah, the company’s chief pharmacy officer, apologized to employees in an internal memo that was shared online by USA Today.
Nurses, lab technicians, pharmacists and therapists at hospitals, clinics and medical offices across the US are planning to strike for three days starting April 25. The unions are demanding that the health-care giant provide raises of up to 14%, which they claim is “far below” what’s needed. They’re also claiming that they’re being underpaid and not getting the quality of care they deserve.