San Francisco VA Employees Sound the Alarm on Chronic Understaffing
January 15, 2016
Categories:
VA
The American public won’t be happy if they find out what’s happening to our country’s veterans at the VA hospital in San Francisco. Chronic short staffing means veterans are not getting the care they need and employees are not getting the resources to care for them.
"For nearly two years we have worked tirelessly to address the critical staffing shortages with agency managers," says AFGE Local 1216 President Michael Sanchez. “Through labor-management meetings and regular communication we have stressed the urgency of fully staffing our main hospital and community clinics in order to fully meet the needs of our veterans. Unfortunately, we’ve been met with broken promises and leadership decisions that have left our staffing levels down by 21 percent.”
Local activists have met with congressional leaders in the past in an effort to motivate agency leaders to come to the table to develop and execute solutions surrounding understaffing. Following these meetings, AFGE Local 1216 found the agency to be responsive in addressing personnel concerns, only to leave their commitments unfulfilled.
“The advocacy I do each and every day is centered around our veterans getting the care they need and deserve,” says Sanchez. “The lack of serious movement on the part of management to effectively solve our staffing problems means that as a union we must turn to our legislators to ensure that the promises made to our nation’s heroes are kept by the agency designed to provide their care.”
AFGE Local 1216 looks forward to continued meetings with lawmakers in order to successfully address and eliminate the staffing shortages in the San Francisco VA Health Care System.
