Kaiser braces for 5-day strike by thousands of workers

Susan Futterman’s husband committed suicide after she had spent weeks trying to get emergency mental health care services for him from Kaiser to no avail. She is now the named plaintiff in a union-backed lawsuit filed against Kaiser in 2013 over mental health access. less Susan Futterman’s husband committed suicide after she had spent weeks trying to get emergency mental health care services for him from Kaiser to no avail. She is now the named plaintiff in a union-backed ... more Photo: Leah Millis / The Chronicle Photo: Leah Millis / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Kaiser braces for 5-day strike by thousands of workers 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

As many as 2,600 Kaiser mental health workers — including psychologists, therapists and social workers — are expected to walk off their jobs Monday, kicking off a statewide, weeklong strike that marks an escalation of protests over what they charge is chronic understaffing that keeps patients waiting far too long for appointments in the health care giant’s mental health clinics.

The workers, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, have long criticized Kaiser’s management over problems with its mental health services. In September, Kaiser agreed to pay a $4 million fine levied in 2013 by state regulators over inadequate access to its mental health services.

“The crisis for patients has exploded and is getting worse. These folks don’t want to strike, but we’re doing this five-day strike to force Kaiser to finally staff appropriately,” said the union’s president, Sal Rosselli.

Clement Papazian, a Kaiser psychiatric social worker in Oakland, agreed. “If we don’t have enough staff to provide the care patients need, it feels like we’re not able to do the job we’ve all made sacrifices to do,” he said. “It really feels like we’re letting our patients down.”

Union accused

Kaiser, for its part, said it has improved services and accused the union of “attacking mental health services and attacking our reputation” as part of its negotiating strategy for a better contract. The union has been negotiating with Kaiser since 2010, when the employees voted to join the newly formed National Union of Healthcare Workers. Among other concessions, the workers want a larger voice in determining mental health clinic staffing.

But “asking mental health care workers to walk, that’s not helpful for patients, and that’s certainly not constructive for bargaining,” said Kaiser spokesman John Nelson. “You can’t help patients by walking away for a week.”

Monday’s planned statewide strike marks the third staged by mental health workers against Kaiser over the issues. The previous two, in 2011 and 2012, were one-day walkouts. Mental health workers at the Oakland hospital held their own one-day strike last April.

While Kaiser has agreed to pay the fine levied by the state, the results of a follow-up survey by the state Department of Managed Health Care to make sure the issues have been resolved are pending.

Meanwhile, three class-action lawsuits have been filed accusing Kaiser of causing harm — and in some cases death — to mental health patients who couldn’t get appropriate care when they needed it.

Susan Futterman, of Point Richmond, the lead plaintiff in an October 2013 lawsuit, said she’s not focused on the workers’ labor actions, but rather wants to make sure what happened to her 57-year-old husband, Fred Paroutaud, never happens to anyone else.

Futterman’s husband killed himself June 28, 2012, after the couple urgently tried for weeks to get him seen but were told to wait until his psychiatrist returned from vacation, she said.

“Kaiser kept telling me, basically, that I was overreacting, and I began to wonder if I was making too much about it,” she said.

First episode

Futterman said her husband, who had suffered his first psychiatric episode just two months before his death, had not discussed killing himself but had not been improving under Kaiser’s care. She said she thinks that was largely because he wasn’t provided the individual help he needed.

Instead, she said, the bulk of his therapy had been in a group setting. She said her husband was a private person and they had requested individual therapy, but Kaiser hadn’t complied.

“I want Kaiser to make some systemic changes in how they treat mental health patients,” she said. “I want them to pay attention and look at the person. To them, Fred was a medical record and nothing more.”

Kaiser’s Nelson said he could not comment on any specific case, but said Kaiser officials investigated the allegations detailed in the lawsuits, including Futterman’s, and found no supporting evidence that the claims had “anything to do with the quality of care or timeliness of care.”

Meanwhile, he said Kaiser has increased the number of therapists in its clinics by 25 percent since 2011, and union officials acknowledge improvements in getting patients into their clinics for initial mental health appointments. The health management organization now complies with a state law requiring that patients be seen for initial appointments within 10 days.

But union officials allege Kaiser patients have to wait too long — up to two months — for follow-up treatment after those initial appointments.

“What they’ve done is play a shell game,” said the union’s Rosselli. “They’ve directed our folks to put significant hours into the initial call so they are more in line with the law on that front, but what it’s caused is something worse.”

The strikers will be joined by 700 other Kaiser workers, including Northern California optical employees, to protest a lack of a contract.

Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver

What patients should know

During the strike:

Kaiser will provide mental health services.

Emergency and urgent appointments will be covered by psychiatrists and other non-striking mental health professionals.

Those with appointments already scheduled have been contacted to see whether rescheduling would be appropriate.