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Kaiser is at it again — retaliating against mental health whistleblowers
Request for Action from the
National Union of Healthcare Workers
Kaiser Permanente is retaliating against more than 4,200 NUHW healthcare professionals for refusing to sign a gag order that would leave people in the dark about Kaiser’s denial of timely mental health care.
Kaiser executives have halted implementation of our legally-binding contracts for mental health clinicians and other professionals after we refused to take down our KaiserDontDeny.org website or stop speaking out about Kaiser’s broken mental health system until Kaiser shows it’s ready to fix it.
Our new contract requires Kaiser to engage in a collaborative process to revamp its mental health care system so that patients don’t have to wait months to see their therapist. At a moment when demand for mental health care is surging because of COVID-19, it’s outrageous that Kaiser is retaliating against clinicians who are ready to work with Kaiser to achieve real parity for mental health care.
The health and wellbeing of Kaiser’s 9 million California members depend on caregivers being able to stand up for their patients without fear of retaliation.
We ask you to contact Kaiser CEO Greg Adams at Gregory.A.Adams@kp.org and Kaiser Director Cynthia Telles at ctelles@mednet.ucla.edu or (818) 422-5161. Telles, a psychologist, is the only mental health professional on Kaiser’s Board of Directors, yet she has refused multiple requests from Kaiser’s clinicians to discuss the obstacles their patients face in getting timely, appropriate care.
Greg Adams and Cynthia Telles must hear that we need immediate action to meet the surging demand for mental health care, and that starts with honoring our contracts and working with us to achieve real parity for mental health patients.
In Unity,
Sal Rosselli, President
National Union of Healthcare Workers