SAN FRANCISCO, June 5 /PRNewswire/ — Jeffery Sterman, Public Affairs Director and voice of Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco for ten years is claiming AIDS discrimination and breach of contract. A person with AIDS, Sterman is one of those who helped create the hospital’s response to HIV and AIDS.
David J. St. Louis, Sterman’s attorney, filed the action in California Superior Court in San Francisco and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan was served June 3, 2008.
The lawsuit details how Kaiser Foundation Hospital and Health Plan created a culture where employees are physically harmed and patient care compromised. Workloads are increased. Staffs are reduced. Humiliation and pressure became part of the working experience. Staffs experienced burnout from working 60 to 80 hours, often seven days a week, for an organization in constant crisis mode. Sterman’s Kaiser Permanente doctors said the hostile work environment affected his health.
They are charged with violation of Title VII of the United States Code, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Article I, Section 8 of the California Constitution.
Sterman said, “The current toxic corporate culture is the antithesis of the Thrive marketing plan and the quality of patient care being compromised.”
Turnover of executives is staggering. “In nine years, San Francisco had six Senior Vice Presidents/Area Managers and two interim Senior Vice Presidents/Area Managers. Of those, three are still there, three were fired, two “retired”.
Problems with the Renal Transplant Program in San Francisco caused record fines after the California Department of Managed Care noted significant management deficiencies.
Sterman is a pioneer in the fight against AIDS. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1983, he founded Continuum HIV Day Services in 1987. He was responsible for first Congressional Field Hearing on AIDS and minorities. Joined Kaiser Permanente’s HIV Advisory Board in 1992 to bridge the gap between activists and medical center staff.
Unlike colleagues, the Americans with Disabilities Act, provides protection to speak out.
“It is unfortunate that employees are being physically harmed by Kaiser’s toxic work environment. It belittles the promise of Kaiser’s multi million dollar Thrive marketing campaign,” he said.
Thank you, Jeffrey Sterman, for speaking on behalf of the many KP employees, past and present, whose health has been destroyed by KP’s work environment and policies. I am one of many in a similar boat, and am only now, almost three years after leaving KP, starting to regain my health.
It’s about time someone on the “inside” stepped forward.
I think this website is testimony to the bogus “Thrive” campaign.
Apparently, no one is “thriving” at kaiser.
After his many years pushing the big lie that is Kaiser Permanente, without regard to the massive number of people his “voice” and actions contributed to harming, I’m more inclined to label Mr. Sterman’s experience as well-deserved karma.
I’m always glad when someone on the inside speaks up, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who thought it was perfectly fine to fully participate in and support KP’s corrupt corporate culture as long as it wasn’t happening to him. My prediction is that Kaiser will settle and pay him off to keep him quiet, and Sterman will accept. And as a condition of the settlement he’ll have to agree not to say anything negative about KP in the future.
Ouch. Ask him what happened to my boss, Dr. Louis Lehman. He had HIV since residency and as far back as 2002, his 50th birthday, he was not well – mentally competent which is documentable. His departure was according to a doctor that I know unpleasant. HIV at Kaiser SF is political issue and probably a concern of the majority of male nurses at K-SFO. The homosexuals were and are the power elite in the organization and if this man worked 80 hours a week as he claims, he was more concerned with the issue and his brethren than he was with his own health. Kaiser SF has a thriving gay culture and I am sure that he was happy there until they found him to be incompetent. Dr. Lehman was forced out because he lost his sanity and was at issue publicly and obviously he was allowed to practice for years with advanced HIV dementia in the ICU and on the governing board of the hospital in SF. I wouldn’t want anyone with dementia directing my health care or instructing medical students. This lawsuit is only going to be the first of many anyhow … all the gay people at K-SFO are such and such’s “lover” and this is only a sickening twist on the subject. I hope that the guy finds out what a cruel employer the Permanente is as I have found …
Even if they silence him, at least this is out t”here:
“The lawsuit details how Kaiser Foundation Hospital and Health Plan created a culture where employees are physically harmed and patient care compromised.”
So, so true!
I wonder how Jeffery Sterman is going to get another job? He was there pretty long to be a whistleblower.
Thank God for whistleblowers who have the integrity & courage to step forward. I worked for KP, too. It was a very difficult experience that also harmed my health. My paycheck felt like hush-money because few really wanted to see any improvement. I was in “Quality Assessment & Improvement,” but soon realized that this department was only a spokes-whore arm of KP Sales & Marketing. In other words, quality assessment was more about marketing a false image than about assessing & improving the quality of health care services. Still makes me sad to know the level of greed/dishonesty behind KP. BTW, *SHAME* on A.J. for lending her famous voice to K.P.’s THRIVE commercials.