St Clara County Doctors Should Be Treated Better
Here is a copy of the letter we will send to your lawmakers:
Dear (Supervisor),
I strongly urge you to support a fair and equal contract with Santa Clara County’s publicly employed doctors, as represented by Valley Physicians Group (VPG), which ends pay inequality and prioritizes the quality healthcare standards our community deserves.
As you know, VPG consists of nearly 500 Santa Clara County-employed doctors united in their mission to deliver the highest quality care to their patients. Despite 15 months of ongoing negotiations, VPG still faces grotesque wage inequalities and poor working conditions, as evidenced by these facts:
- Nearly 50% of VPG’s members, mainly doctors working as specialists and non-primary care providers, receive a substandard wage that is below local market rates;
- Of those receiving below-market wages, nearly 2/3 are female doctors and nearly 2/3 are Asian Pacific Islanders (API);
- Now, even in 2022, nearly 20% of the entire VPG membership is comprised of API female doctors shockingly receiving substandard market wages.
In addition to paying substandard wages, the County is also requesting a new compensation pilot program that would tie the salaries of our publicly employed doctors directly to the total number of patient visits per hour! This will dramatically harm patient safety and the quality of healthcare in our community.
As your constituent, I do not want to see our public doctors being forced to choose quantity over quality. This is a dangerous precedent that will negatively impact our community’s health outcomes by:
- Reducing the time patients spend with their publicly employed primary care doctor
- Treating patients as statistics versus human beings with valid healthcare needs
- Diminishing consistent high-quality care
In conclusion, I urge you to immediately approve a fair and equal Memorandum of Understanding, as proposed by VPG.
Our community’s health and well-being should not be at the bargaining table
Thank you,