'I hope that Kaiser leadership hears our voices,' Adigun said, before joining the picket line. Keyani Adigun, a clinical pharmacist in Washington D.C., said she struggled throughout the pandemic to keep up with patient demands, as colleagues left Kaiser in droves.Īnd she said her employer still isn't providing enough resources - more than three years after COVID-19 hit the U.S. Kaiser clinical pharmacist Keyani Adigun joins her union's picket line outside the Kaiser Permanente Springfield Medical Center in Virginia, on Wednesday, Oct.

Their walkout is driven by a short-staffing crisis that workers say has led to tough working conditions that make it increasingly difficult to retain Kaiser employees, while also simultaneously leading to a deterioration in the quality of care for Kaiser's patients.Ībout 11% of union positions were vacant in April of this year, according to Kaiser data obtained by the unions. These health care professionals are the latest group of crucial workers to strike over work conditions and pay this year, after the Hollywood writers and the ongoing United Auto Workers strike, among others. Inpatient pharmacies at Kaiser hospitals will stay open.Ībout 60% of Kaiser employees, including doctors, will still be working throughout the strike, according to the organization. The organization is expanding its network of pharmacy locations to include community pharmacies, to ensure patients can access medication in the event that outpatient pharmacies temporarily close. Kaiser has warned patients that non-emergency and elective services may be rescheduled. It said it is onboarding professionals who will service in critical care roles during the strike. The health care provider has said its hospitals and emergency departments will remain open throughout the strike, staffed by physicians and other staff. Most Kaiser workers who have walked off the job will be on strike for three days, until Saturday morning - except those in Virginia and Washington D.C., who will be on strike for 24 hours. Kaiser, headquartered in Oakland, California, is one of the largest nonprofit health care providers in the United States, serving nearly 13 million patients. It is the biggest health care strike in U.S. Over 75,000 workers - including nurses, emergency department technicians, pharmacists and hundreds of others - went on strike in California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

walked off the job on Wednesday morning, in an effort to ramp up pressure on their employer to fix a staffing shortage that has intensified since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Health care workers at hundreds of Kaiser Permanente hospitals and medical facilities across the U.S. Frontline health care workers hold a demonstration outside Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center on September 4.

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