State regulators fined Kaiser Permanente $ 55,350 for security breaches at its Santa Rosa medical center, claiming that Sonoma County’s largest health care provider failed to take adequate steps to prevent COVID-19 from spreading by its force. job.
The fines, which are being contested by Kaiser, emerged from a six-month investigation launched last year by the California Occupational Safety and Health Division that found that the HMO did not adequately train employees to protect themselves against airborne pathogens and did not alerted workers that he was exposed to the coronavirus.
Cal / OSHA claimed that Kaiser did not fully investigate these exposures, which took place in the emergency department and on the primary floor, where people with COVID-19 were receiving care. Kaiser employees received inadequate protective equipment, including air-purifying respirators “with defective face shields taped”, according to the November 20 quote.
Kaiser Permanente immediately filed an appeal and denied some of the charges, saying they date back to the early days of the pandemic, when some state and federal regulations were not yet in force.
“It is misleading to interpret these quotes to signal any serious ongoing violations of Kaiser Permanente’s current public health guidelines,” the company said in a statement provided by a spokesman on Friday. “In fact, these quotes stem mainly from allegations long before the pandemic, as health systems, including ours, struggled against national scarcity and evolving public health guidelines.”
California regulators have reported more workplace safety violations at Kaiser Permanente facilities than any other healthcare employer in the state, resulting in nearly $ 500,000 in fines, according to an analysis published by CalMatters, a news organization Sacramento-based nonprofit organization.
State inspectors found cases of improper training in protocols for airborne hazards, dilapidated equipment and failures to report outbreaks of COVID-19 at Kaiser facilities across the state. In many cases, Cal / OSHA responded to complaints while some investigations began after employees were hospitalized with COVID-19, according to an agency spokesman.
The largest fine, $ 87,500, was issued to Kaiser San Leandro Medical Center. The facility repeatedly failed to notify Cal / OSHA when employees were hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the quote.
The Santa Rosa medical center had the fifth largest fine among Kaiser’s 12 facilities cited by state regulators. He tracked facilities in San Leandro, Oakland, Antioquia and San Jose, where the fines included a $ 43,000 fine after at least 60 employees fell ill after a colleague who later tested positive for coronavirus wore an inflatable Christmas tree costume for go to the emergency room.
Kaiser Permanente, in an e-mail, said that these violations stem from complaints filed by advocacy groups that are making “efforts to file OSHA complaints as part of their campaign to advocate for change”.
The Cal / OSHA inspection involving Kaiser’s Santa Rosa Medical Center opened on May 6 and continued through November 5. All violations occurred “before and during the course of the inspection,” according to the document. The violations may have been observed at any time or moments during that date range, said a Cal / OSHA spokesman.
The four quotes state that the company in some cases failed to respond adequately to virus exposures in the workplace, did not adequately train employees how to protect themselves from airborne pathogens, did not provide adequate instructions on the use of respirators and did not properly examined patients and staff entering their facility.
The most serious citation involved the company’s procedures for workplace exposures. Cal / OSHA reported that Santa Rosa Medical Center employees have not investigated cases of exposure on their premises. The company also did not notify employees “who have had significant exposures to suspected cases and cases of COVID-19, nor to provide post-exposure medical services to these employees,” said state regulators.
That quote alone carries a $ 18,000 fine.
The timing of the violations would be critical to understanding what they mean, according to Laura Rosenthal, a lawyer in Santa Rosa who specializes in labor indemnity legislation.
The failure of a healthcare company to notify employees of possible exposure should be a serious concern for any worker or patient, Rosenthal sad.
“All of this can be fixed,” said Rosenthal, who read the state’s summary citation report. “My biggest concern would be whether they fixed it, not so much the fines, but did they fix these problems?”
Unions representing Kaiser employees reject the company’s claim that violations are outdated or invalid.
Failing to report workplace exposures to employees has been “the biggest problem we face here across the union,” said Renee Saldaña, press secretary at SEIU United Healthcare Workers West. It has been a problem for healthcare professionals at almost every facility, not just at Kaiser, said Saldaña.
“This has been a major concern for all of our members,” she said.
Cyndi Krahne, chief representative of the Santa Rosa nurse, members of the California Nurses Association, said her members reported seeing those respirators with tape even after the citation was issued in November, although the practice is no longer in effect.
Krahne, who works at the 4West surgical unit that serves COVID-19 patients, said she and other members still have concerns about how some managers limit access to personal protective equipment and company policies to notify employees of potential exposure to COVID-19 cases.
“We don’t feel really safe knowing that our employer does not feel it necessary to report possible exposure,” said Krahne.
Kaiser Permanente is appealing to “each of these quotes” from Cal / OSHA across the state, noting that the quotes “are not considered final determinations”.
Employers can have reduced fines for correcting problems and they can also provide evidence to refute the validity of violations, according to Cal / OSHA.
“Unequivocally, our medical centers are safe places to work and receive care,” said the company in its statement.
In September, Cal / OSHA announced a $ 32,000 fine against the Santa Rosa Police Department, saying it did not protect its employees from the coronavirus. A veteran detective who died of the disease was exposed at work to a colleague who had known symptoms of COVID-19, Cal / OSHA claimed.
The department filed an appeal on 17 November.
You can contact editor Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or [email protected]. On Twitter @jjpressdem.