Employees of state-run Alaska Psychiatric Institute on March 8 marched from API to MacLoughlin to bring attention to the unsafe work conditions at API.
We would like to bring to the public’s and news organization’s attention that some of the unsafe work conditions for staff are self-inflicted by the employee union. In 2011, a nine-page report by Disability Law Center stated, “API violates Patients’ Rights in Handling Patients’ grievances,” saying union rules were keeping patient grievances secret.
Patients have a right by law to gender choice of staff for intimate care — same-gender staff must do routine safety checks into bedrooms, bathrooms and showers. Unions do not agree with employees being assigned by gender in policy.
Patients are separated from family at API for convenience — family has a calming effect on patients and rights of patients are removed by staff for minor infractions of hospital rules and that antagonizes patients.
Employee unions at API, with the help of the Department of Health and Social Services, have helped create an atmosphere that antagonizes patients and makes a bad situation worse.
Faith Myers
and Dorrance Collins,
Anchorage