At UC San Francisco, 150 surgeries canceled because of strike

SAN FRANCISCO -- A strike by patient-care workers concerned about pension changes and staffing levels has led to the cancellation of an expected 150 surgeries at UC San Francisco Medical Center over the two-day labor action and will affect at least another 200 patients, hospital officials said Tuesday.

As strikers in green T-shirts blew whistles and chanted outside of the hilltop hospital, staff worked to discharge as many patients as possible, dropping the normal census at the adult facility and adjacent UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital to 398 from the usual 505.

“Mark Laret, the hospital CEO, eliminated 300 positions in April, pretty much across everything,” said Randy Johnson, an MRI technologist and member of the striking American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“Really hit hard [were] hospital assistants,” Johnson said, as placard-bearing strikers marched around him. “They answer the call lights and assist patients. They eliminated the lift team that turns heavy patients. It’s made it very difficult to care for people.”

UCSF is one of five UC medical centers -- along with UCLA, UC Irvine, UC San Diego and UC Davis -- affected by the strike, which began at 4 a.m. Tuesday and is scheduled to end at 4 a.m. Thursday. Officials here argue that the strikers are the ones who are endangering patient health and safety.

“As an academic medical center, we staff better than our community [hospital] counterparts because of our complex patient care here,” said Sheila Antrum, chief nursing officer at UCSF Medical Center. “I would say that staffing levels are not the primary issue. It’s around the pension.”

The two sides have been negotiating for nearly a year over a new labor contract. UC officials have defended their safety record and said the union is resisting the pension changes that more than a dozen other bargaining units have agreed to.

In addition to the canceled surgeries, UCSF officials said that an additional 100 patients will not receive chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, among other procedures, and an additional 100 patients seeking to transfer to the Parnassus Avenue complex probably will be turned away.

Patients remaining at the hospital were offered earplugs and in-room music Tuesday morning to help block out the sounds of the demonstration, the chants and bullhorns and whistles and clacking noise makers.

Starting early Tuesday, a couple of hundred AFSCME workers and members of other sympathetic unions marched in front of the medical center in the chilly morning breeze. Their signs urged, “Fair Wages” and “No Second Class Workers” and “Retirement Security” and “Service Workers Sympathy Strike.”

A union leader with a bullhorn shouted: “What’s this about?” The demonstrators chanted in response, “Patient care!” A nearby food truck selling lattes and espressos was doing brisk business.

Greg Leggett, a senior custodian from Pinole, said he was striking this week because he was worried about his own healthcare, his retirement and what he sees as inequity in the system between well-paid managers and threatened workers.

“One of our major problems is management at the top,” said Leggett, an AFSCME member. “They get the raises, but they want to delete from the bottom. I worry about how this will be for those coming behind us. This used to be a great place to work, where you can retire from. That’s questionable now.

“I’m 55,” he said. “Hopefully I can be here another six to seven years. At 62, I want to be out of here.”

But Mark Hayman-Martinez, a patient-care assistant in the pediatric intensive care unit, said he came in to work on his day off because he thinks the strike is a “bad idea.” He is a member of AFSCME and comes “from a very proud union family.”

“I’m not going to affect patient care or make patients nervous over the small stuff,” Hayman-Martinez said during his Tuesday morning shift. “These are parents who just found out their kid has a brain tumor. They don’t need to worry more.

“If I felt that the university was not engaged in talking about things,” he said, “I would be out there.”

AFSCME officials said they expect an estimated 2,000 workers to cycle in and out of the picket line outside UCSF. Medical center officials said they brought in 105 replacement workers as of mid-morning Tuesday.

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maria.laganga@latimes.com

Twitter: @marialaganga