Kaiser Permanente’s newest local hospital and its third in San Diego County opened Wednesday in San Marcos.
The seven-story Kaiser Permanente San Marcos Medical Center took nearly three years to build and features a 24-hour emergency department, eight operating rooms and the capacity for 206 single interactive patient rooms, according to Kaiser.
Its specialty services include an intensive care unit, interventional radiology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, urology, nephrology, orthopedics, a robotic surgery program, maternal child health services and a neonatal intensive care unit.
“With nearly 1 in 5 San Diegans entrusting their care to Kaiser Permanente, our new hospital allows us to continue to bring access to quality health care where, when and how our patients want it,” said Michael Lalich, area medical director and chief of Kaiser Permanente in San Diego.
But the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, which represents about 35,000 registered nurses and health care workers, claims Kaiser’s new facility is coming online as its two other local hospitals – San Diego Medical Center and Zion Medical Center – have been “chronically understaffed for years.”
Labor officials say a lack of adequate staffing and resources has led to burnout at Kaiser’s other two local facilities.
“Kaiser Permanente has known for a long time about staffing problems at their two existing medical centers in San Diego and with the opening of their new one in San Marcos. The warnings from our registered nurses have fallen on deaf ears,” UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine Morales said in a statement.
A Kaiser Permanente news release announcing the hospital’s opening states that it “will provide more than 1,000 permanent new jobs helping boost the economic vitality of northern San Diego County.”
Kaiser pushed back on the union’s claims, and in a statement asserted that its three San Diego-area medical centers “are fully staffed and meet or exceed California state-mandated nurse staffing ratios.”
Kaiser officials added, “The safety of our health care employees is also a top priority, and we are continuously investing in our nurses to ensure they receive the most up-to-date training and development, have the latest tools and protective equipment, and most innovative technology, along with competitive compensation and benefits.”
They also said the company’s “attrition rate is significantly lower than the industry benchmark. We are proud Kaiser Permanente has one of the lowest turnover rates for nurses in health care.”
– City News Service
