The staffing crisis is hurting patient care

Even before the pandemic, California faced a shortage of 500,000 allied healthcare workers needed to care for our aging population.

Now California is facing a full-blown patient care crisis that we need to address immediately: The quality of patient care is down, patients get much less hands-on attention, and face longer wait times and delays in care, sometimes with tragic consequences. Simply put, there no longer are enough healthcare workers to safely and properly provide patients the care they need.

Raising wages to improve staffing and patient care

Raising the minimum wage for healthcare workers will help us retain staff who were considering leaving due to the skyrocketing cost of living and ongoing emotional toll of the pandemic. Raising wages will also attract more workers to the industry and bolster efforts to fill the huge shortage of healthcare workers our state is facing.

If we wait for our employers alone to take action to solve the staffing crisis, nothing will change. We have to use every tool at our disposal — including political action — to tackle this crisis. It’s time for us to win concrete changes to improve staffing and working conditions — for us and our patients.

SB Bill 525 — Statewide Healthcare Worker Minimum Wage

Senator Maria Elena Durazo has introduced SB 525 which would set a statewide $25/hour minimum wage for healthcare workers.

The new minimum wage would cover all workers who provide services in nursing, caregiving, housekeeping, guard duties, clerical, food services, laundry, medical care, and other patient-care related services.

Healthcare facilities covered by the bill include hospitals, urgent care centers, ambulatory surgical centers, skilled nursing facilities, community health clinics (FQHC) and other primary care clinics, outpatient settings, physician offices, dialysis clinics, behavioral health centers, and integrated healthcare delivery systems.

Check out the Fair Wages for Healthcare Workers Now! website.

Healthcare Worker Minimum Wage in California Cities

More and more cities are making the $25 healthcare worker minimum wage the law in their city. Cities who have passed the law so far include:

• Los Angeles
• Long Beach
• Downey
• Lynwood

In addition, voters in the city of Inglewood passed the law as a city measure in November of 2022, and it went into effect in December 2022.

Paid for by Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West.
560 Thomas L Berkley Way, Oakland, CA 94611.