Before Christmas outbreak, Kaiser San Jose fined $85,000.
Health care giant’s Antioch hospital also fined for failing to reveal other worker COVID-19 cases
SAN JOSE >> A month before Kaiser Permanente came under fire for failing to report a deadly Christmas Day coronavirus outbreak at its San Jose medical center, the health care giant was fined more than $85,000, in part for keeping quiet when one of its employees was hospitalized for a week with COVID-19 early in the pandemic.
And while the outbreak was spreading through the San Jose emergency department in late December, Kaiser’s sister hospital in Antioch was fined $56,000 on Dec. 28 for repeatedly failing to report employees falling ill with the virus.
Kaiser denied the allegations in both cases on Monday and said it is appealing the fines.
Kaiser’s San Jose facility has been under intense scrutiny
since it issued a news release on Jan. 3 saying that 44 employees of its Emergency Department had tested positive for coronavirus and one worker had died. It suggested that a well-meaning employee, dressed in an air-powered inflatable tree costume Christmas morning, may have been a superspreader — a possibility that is still being investigated. The number of sick employees has since grown to at least 60.
Santa Clara County officials say the news release was the first the public health department heard about the outbreak and slapped the hospital with the $43,000 fine last week, $1,000 for each original case it failed to immediately report.
The allegations that led to the string of fines against the hospital network infuriated Jori Buriani, a dental hygienist who says she was an ER patient at Kaiser San Jose on Christmas morning and was never notified — like other patients have been — of the exposure. She says she never saw the tree and was discharged just before 9 a.m., roughly the time the woman in the tree costume made her appearance. Still, she said, she tested positive for coronavirus last week — about 11 days after Christmas — as did her husband.
“It makes me sick. I have had Kaiser my whole life and I have defended them to anyone who has trash-talked them,” said Buriani, 53. “And now that all these violations are coming out, it blows my mind.”
In a statement Monday, the hospital network emphasized that the state penalties at the San Jose hospital stemmed from claims made last spring when the virus was new and regulations were constantly evolving.
“Importantly, they have absolutely nothing to do with what may have occurred at Kaiser Permanente San Jose on Dec. 25,” Kaiser said.
Still, Cal/OSHA, the state agency that oversees workplace safety and levied the $85,000 fine against Kaiser San Jose, said Monday it is also investigating “subsequent illnesses and complaints” at the San Jose hospital.
Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith said last week that Kaiser had a reason for not reporting the cases right away: “From their perspective, they misunderstood.”
Kaiser did not explain why it didn’t notify county health officials when employees started getting sick — as early as Dec. 27. But it did address some of the other allegations that led to the state’s Nov. 23 fine, including that Kaiser failed to provide protective respirators for staff “performing life- saving procedures on persons infected with COVID-19, and failed to investigate incidents of exposure.”
In its statement Monday, Kaiser suggested that some complaints dating to March and May stemmed from labor groups advocating for change.
Rules for protective equipment last spring “evolved as we grappled with national shortages,” the statement said “Cal/ OSHA and public health guidance has also continued to evolve.”
Kaiser also said that while it is “extremely proud” that its hospitals were some of the first to treat COVID-19 patients, it also “provided high visibility for these efforts.”
Numerous workplaces, from hospitals to farms, have been cited by Cal/ OSHA over the past 10 months for coronavirus-related violations, including many it deemed “serious.”
At the Kaiser in Antioch, Cal/OSHA said it imposed the $56,000 fine after the hospital failed to immediately report that two employees were hospitalized with coronavirus in May and July, among other violations to maintain a safe work environment in the midst of the pandemic.