Raising standards at Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center

 

Raising standards for our patients

We need adequate staffing, responsive workloads, and safe conditions to ensure patients receive quality care:

  • Workers are struggling to provide safe and timely care to patients because of insufficient staffing, unreasonable workloads, and continually increasing workloads.
  • Staff turnover affects our ability to build a skill team that works well together – in some departments, more than 50 percent of staff were hired within the last two years.
  • At least one in four of us have been injured at work – short-staffing can also lead to workplace injuries that put workers and patients in danger.

Raising standards for our families

We need wages that keep up with the cost of living, and affordable insurance to keep ourselves and our loved ones healthy:

  • The cost of living in Orange County is almost four times higher than the national average. Costs rose almost 4 percent in just one year (2017 to 2018) – that means we need annual raises of at least 4 percent just to maintain current standards of living.
  • The federal government states that families who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing are suffering financial hardship. At FVRMC, 86 percent of us reported spending more than 30 percent of our income on housing.
  • Healthcare costs – insurance premiums, treatment co-pays, and other medical expenses – are growing even faster of the cost of living. A recent report by Modern Healthcare predicts a 6 percent rise in healthcare costs in 2020.

Raising standards for our professions

We need respect on the job and fair compensation that reflects our experience and responsibilities:

  • A whopping 84 percent of respondents said our wages are too low for their skills we bring and the work we do.
  • For many classifications, a significant percentage of us who were hired before April 2017 are being paid below the wage scale.
  • While the average hourly rate at Fountain Valley is $22 per hour, Tenet CEO Ronald Rittenmeyer takes home an astounding $7,278 per hour. And that’s just his annual salary – it doesn’t include bones, stock awards, or other perks.