DOCTORS—Improved Pay, Conditions for Physicians in New Labor Pact

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Los Angeles County resident physicians and interns have won 3 percent across-the-board annual raises. On top of that, first-year interns were given an additional 5 percent pay hike spread over two years.

The pact, ratified Dec. 28 but still subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors, applies to the 1,400 residents and interns working at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

“(Giving) residents better working conditions at the hospital helps the county, whether they realize it or not,” said Dr. Angela Nossett, a third-year resident in family medicine at Harbor-UCLA who is president of the Joint Council of Interns and Residents, which represents the doctors. “It helps to recruit residents. It helps to retain residents and it helps the patient by improving patient care.”

Interns now start at an annual salary of $31,282, while the longest-serving residents in surgical subspecialties, those with seven years’ experience, make a base of $51,984.

The county also committed to giving the doctors at least one day off per week while limiting the number of days they are on 24-hour call to once every three days. Some doctors have been on 24-hour call as frequently as every other day. In addition, the county pledged to improve such basics as sleeping conditions and meals for on-call doctors.

The two sides, which had been negotiating since contract expired in September, reached an agreement after an all-night bargaining session in which the county agreed to language guaranteeing the doctors a seat on a committee overseeing a restructuring of the health department.

That process, which includes cutting positions while increasing outpatient care, is required by federal officials as part of an agreement to extend the county’s Medicaid waiver, which will net the county some $1.2 billion over five years.

The pact effectively ends a long period of discontent that recently reached a level intense enough to prompt county medical residents and interns to join nurses on the picket lines.

“We value our residents and interns,” said Dr. Gail Anderson, acting chief medical officer for the county Department of Health Services, who praised the agreement as good for both sides. “We are very much committed to making sure they have a good experience here.”

The issue of working conditions loomed large during the negotiations. Doctors have been irritated by a lack of beds for those who are on-call and thus can’t leave the hospitals. That forced some to sleep in empty patient rooms and even on tables, Nossett said.

Doctors also have had problems getting meals during their overnight shifts. When the cafeteria closes, doctors are relegated to buying snacks in vending machines, she said.

The county plans to renovate space where needed to provide better sleeping conditions, while working out a plan to improve the food, Anderson said.

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