Workers at Gladman Mental Health Rehabilitation Center, 2633 E. 27th St., Oakland, and Villa Fairmont Mental Health Rehabilitation Center and Willow Rock Center, 15200 Foothill Blvd., San Leandro, will picket the facilities using social distancing from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today to protest a lack of clear guidelines, screening, and training on COVID-19 protocols that puts workers, their families and patients at risk of infection.
The workers say the centers have delayed testing for COVID-19 and have no clear isolation process to treat infected patients. The centers also have a lack of N95 masks, which leaves workers, patients and family members open to infection, and do not have enough staff to cover the high number of people who have called off work due to exposure to the virus.
“As nurses and mental health professionals, we’re tired of hearing how essential we are and then seeing unsafe staff-to-patient ratios and slow or no responses to safety concerns,” said Walker Morgan, a licensed vocation nurse at Telecare’s Willow Rock Center. “What you do speaks so loudly, and we can’t hear a word management is saying.”
WHAT: Pickets with social distancing at mental health centers in Oakland and San Leandro.
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today, Wednesday, May 13.
WHERE: Gladman Mental Health Rehabilitation Center, 2633 E. 27th St., Oakland, and Villa Fairmont Mental Health Rehabilitation Center and Willow Rock Center, 15200 Foothill Blvd., San Leandro.
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SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is one of the largest unions of hospital workers in the United States, with 97,000 members. Learn more at www.seiu-uhw.org.