What the Heck?
During negotiations, our Union proposed a new technology committee which would be composed of Bargaining Unit employees. Our goal was to allow our members to discuss what they feel will and will not work well on the units, and how to best implement the new technology. Although we were talking about medical equipment, judging from this most recent purchase, the hospital needs our input. Let’s use our new coffee makers — the one cup wonders — as an example.
Staff Issues:
- Coffee by the pot is ideal for the unit, our patients and patient families and friends. Now nurses will have to make each cup individually. We don’t know how long it will take but we can tell you that making one cup at a time will take longer and take us away from patient care. Less quantity and quality of coffee by the cup could also affect patient satisfaction. The previous coffee makers had a spigot for hot water that staff uses for multiple purposes, including patient care uses. Now we have no access to hot water.
- The brew capsules will generate more trash and are less environmentally friendly.
- Single cup coffee is more expensive and most certainly not cost-effective.
- We question if the hospital will actually keep these coffee capsules in stock or whether it is just a way to stop providing staff with easily accessible coffee and tea. Work us through our breaks, provide inadequate staffing, AND cut off our supply of decent coffee. Now that’s a GREAT idea!
- Coffee is judged primarily by taste and, although we expect house blend from the hospital, popular sentiment is that this new coffee tastes disgusting.
- If Tarzana has the money to spend on fancy new coffee makers, we’ve got a long list of MEDICAL equipment that should be replaced, updated or fixed that would seem to take priority over coffee makers.
Before the hospital tosses our old coffee pots, we strongly recommend that they be returned to the units. We will continue to put them to good use.