By SHERRY HALBROOK
Nearly 200 PEF members and their unionized co-workers at Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Flatbush turned out for a meeting March 12 at the facility to tell their state legislators about serious issues there.
“They got an earful,” said PEF Division 252 Treasurer Jasmine Wilson-LaFond, a utilization review coordinator at Kingsboro.
State Sen. Eric Adams and Assembly Member Karim Camara, in whose districts Kingsboro is located, led the legislative delegation on the receiving end of that outpouring from the Kingsboro employees. Sen. Majority Conference Leader John Sampson, Sen. Kevin Parker and Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries all sent top staff members to the meeting.
PEF members told the legislators mismanagement has put Kingsboro’s future and the quality of patient care on the line.
The facility could lose up to $22 million in federal Medicaid funding this year if it fails to correct problems identified in a survey (inspection) conducted by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but PEF members said the problems are far more deeply rooted than the specific issues raised in the survey.
“We’ve failed the CMS survey four times. We never did that before,” said PEF Division 252 steward Bernadette O’Connor, a senior recreation therapist at Kingsboro.
Lawmakers
want answersThe meeting with the lawmakers was called by PEF Vice President Pat Baker, PEF’s labor-relations coordinator and its labor-management chair for the state Office of Mental Health, which operates Kingsboro.
Baker said the lawmakers told her they went directly to state Mental Health Commissioner Michael Hogan for some answers before the meeting at Kingsboro. Hogan assured them OMH is committed to the center, which serves the most populous county in the state, and has hired private consultants to advise OMH on how to bring Kingsboro into compliance with the federal standards.
Baker said it’s her understanding the legislators plan to meet with Hogan again in a few weeks for a lengthier discussion of the situation.
“But there was nothing about the systemic problems that caused Kingsboro to fail the CMS surveys in the first place,” Baker said. “Those are the issues our members raised at the meeting; issues of intimidation, harassment, bullying and retaliation. All of these issues can be resolved only when we have the right kind of spirit of cooperation and mutual respect and trust at Kingsboro.”
Members brave retaliation
Baker said, “I am proud of our members who had the courage to come and speak up about these issues. It took courage. These members are living in fear.
“We wanted this meeting to give them hope that things can change and trust in the union to work for them,” Baker said.
Wilson-LaFond said she thought the meeting was successful because it gave the legislators “the chance to hear first-hand what people here are experiencing and what solutions they would like to see. At first, people were too scared to speak. Sometimes we think we are the only ones who have a problem. But when a few spoke up, others found the courage to speak too.”
The PEF members who spoke ranged the gamut from doctors and nurses to social workers, therapists, and supervisors, as well as members from other bargaining units.
“We encourage members who could not come to the meeting to write to their legislators,” Wilson-LaFond said.
As a PEF steward, O’Connor said she frequently hears from members that their professional credentials and expertise are not respected by management.
For example, non-clinicians often grill doctors and nurses on patients’ medications and treatments.
Professionals who try to justify their decisions may be told loudly and publicly to “Shut up!” or to “Leave my meeting.”
“They are ordered to do what they are told immediately or they will be ‘written up,’” O’Connor said.
So much administrative interference in the treatment of patients is undercutting the quality of patient care, the PEF members said, and staff members are bullied into allowing it.
“All we want is a work environment where we can continue to provide excellent patient care,” Wilson-LaFond said. “The patients have always been our top priority.