By Tran Nguyen. San Jose Spotlight. Bay City News.
Santa Clara County's health care system could face a mass exodus of doctors due to poor working conditions and lack of respect from management.
More than 200 of the county’s 288 employed physicians do not plan to stay at Santa Clara Valley Medical Care — VMC — nearly 69 percent of whom plan to leave the system in the next three years, according to a survey by Valley Physician Group. The group is a union representing more than 450 county-employed physicians.
Among those planning to leave, three in five physicians cited disrespect from county administration as the reason. More than 70 percent of physicians said they feel worse about their jobs compared to last year.
Doctors have been working without a contract for more than a year and the union has been in negotiations with the county for more than two years.
Dr. Steve Harris, president of Valley Physician Group, said the problems are a direct result of county leaders failing to listen to and address physicians' concerns.
The county has already lost 65 primary care physicians in the past five years and has been unable to retain people from its residency program during the same period, he said.
“These numbers are shocking and should be a wake-up call for the county,” Harris told San Jose Spotlight. “This used to be a place where people came to spend their careers, and that’s not the case anymore.”
County officials, including Executive Jeff Smith, have repeatedly said the health care system is not in trouble, downplaying doctors' concerns as a tactic to win a favorable contract.
"We are in negotiations with the doctors' union at the moment and we have no comment on the union's attempts to draw attention to the negotiations in the press," Smith said, referring to the survey.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez said she cannot comment on the ongoing negotiations. The other supervisors did not respond in time for publication.
The survey came after the union raised the alarm about years-long problems at VMC, where doctors said they are being asked to prioritise quantity over quality of care. Doctors said they are reaching a breaking point, with some of the region’s most vulnerable patients having to wait months for appointments, crucial tests and diagnoses.
Harris said the issue is not just about pay increases, and the union is considering a strike if Santa Clara County does not agree to a contract soon.
“It’s about working conditions and how they are so closely tied to patient care, but the county has no sense of urgency in addressing these issues,” Harris said.
County-employed physicians in several departments said they were driven to the brink of madness after years of seeing comments and concerns ignored and downplayed.
The problems at VMC, such as the ongoing worker shortage, are not unique, but doctors said they are frustrated with tone-deaf leadership. Health care workers said COVID-19 worsened the years-long problem, resulting in an average wait of between eight and 14 hours for emergency services, a backlog of hundreds of patients and months of waiting for basic, noninvasive screenings.
Many health workers, including doctors, are doing the work of two or three people, they said.
More than 76 percent of physicians surveyed said VMC does not provide adequate care to patients and 90 percent said the county does not provide enough resources and workers to support them.
A doctor with about five years of experience at VMC said they are considering leaving, along with four other doctors in the same department. They said they have to spend their days off catching up on administrative tasks because of the heavy workload. San Jose Spotlight is not naming the doctors for fear of retaliation.
“I thought I had found my forever job – at VMC – but the more I think about it, I feel hopeless,” the doctor explained. “What’s crazy to me is the fact that we are one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, and this is how we choose to treat our patients.”
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