Hospital workers braved a pandemic, but some can’t afford their own healthcare
Employees rallied outside Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center Thursday to demand better wages and benefits for essential workers who fed, cleaned up after and sat with COVID-19 patients during the pandemic but say they can barely afford their own healthcare.
More than 100 people turned out at the Fountain Valley facility — managed by Tenet Healthcare — to draw attention to the fact that, while nurses were granted hazard pay and executives received COVID-19 bonuses, many employees working in high-risk scenarios for much lower salaries received no such extra compensation.
“I was working in the ICU every day,” said Eunice Zamorano, an environmental services (EVS) employee who cleaned rooms where coronavirus patients had been treated, with only gloves and a surgical mask for protection. “It was a very scary time. [But] we didn’t get any extra pay due to COVID.”
Zamorano, her husband and their five children managed to survive the pandemic in their Anaheim rental without getting infected, which was a relief, she said, since they cannot afford employee health insurance premiums.
Johnenfer Larry, a Compton resident and EVS employee at Tenet’s Lakewood Regional Medical Center, wasn’t so lucky. By the time she tested positive in June, both her sons and her grandparents, who babysat the boys while she was at work, had already contracted the coronavirus.
“I took every precaution I could to keep my family safe, but there were too many times my hospital did not have PPE,” she said. “Nearly all of my coworkers on the night shift have gotten [the coronavirus.]”
Larry was taken to the hospital five times due to blood clots in her lungs. One hospital bill came in at $10,500. Worse, she said, she was too sick to help her 82-year-old grandfather get the medical care he needed to fight the illness. After he died from COVID-19, she regretted she wasn’t there to say goodbye.
“I felt helpless,” she said.
Environmental and food service workers like Zamorano and Larry are among roughly 225 employees who work at Tenet facilities under a subcontract with North Carolina-based Compass Group USA. Since they are not employed directly by Tenet Healthcare, they do not receive the same bonus pay or benefits offered to regular employees.
That’s something they, and the union, would like to see change. Lanelle Anderson, a patient dining associate at Fountain Valley Regional and a union steward who lives in Costa Mesa, said the inequity between Tenet and Compass employees has been evident during the pandemic.
“They say, ‘You’re Compass, we’re not responsible for you.’ They treat us like we’re second class,” she added. “But we are the ones who give food to the patients, the ones who are cleaning the rooms. Without us doing that, the patients wouldn’t survive.”
Compass employees have been at the bargaining table with the company since November 2020. Their facilities’ contracts expired last month. Larry said she simply wants the same respect and consideration as the co-workers she sees every day.
“I just want to feel equal,” the 37-year-old said. “I’m just as important as the doctor or the nurse or the X-ray tech — I want to feel like we’re family.”
Tenet spokeswoman Jennifer Bayer said in a statement Thursday’s rally isn’t about Tenet Healthcare or Fountain Valley Regional, but “a negotiation strictly between the NUHW and the Compass Group.”
“At all times, our main concern is the safety of our staff, the integrity of our facilities and the best possible outcomes for our patients,” Bayer wrote. “We remain hopeful that the NUHW and Compass will reach a positive outcome at the conclusion of their respective negotiations.”
Another 600 technicians, lab workers and nursing assistants represented by NUHW and employed directly by Tenet are also going through contract negotiations after their most recent agreement expired May 4.
Connie Montesano, a lab technician and NUHW member at Fountain Valley Regional, said the company proposed a 2% salary increase but put forth a plan where workers’ health insurance premiums would increase each year. About 64% of members earn less than $55,000 annually, she said.
Meanwhile, according to a proxy statement issued in advance of Tenet’s virtual annual shareholders meeting Thursday, two top executives — President and Chief Operating Officer Dr. Saum Sutaria and Chief Financial Officer Dan Cancelmi — were awarded one-time bonuses of $500,000 and $250,000, respectively, for their “special efforts during the pandemic.”
News reports indicate that in February, Tenet Healthcare reported a fourth-quarter net income of $414 million, with revenue last year reported at $17.64 billion. The Dallas-based corporation anticipated it would bring in $4.6 billion to $4.8 billion in revenue by April 1, 2021, according to the Associated Press.
Speaking at the rally, Montesano called the discrepancy between corporate dividends and employees’ low wages unfair.
“If there’s one thing this past year has taught us, it’s that this hospital exists because of us, not because of them,” she said.
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