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Employees rallied outside Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center Thursday to demand better wages and benefits for essential workers who fed, cleaned up after and sat with COVID-19 patients during the pandemic but say they can barely afford their own healthcare.
More than 100 people turned out at the Fountain Valley facility managed by Tenet Healthcare to draw attention to the fact that, while nurses were granted hazard pay and executives received COVID-19 bonuses, many employees working in high-risk scenarios for much lower salaries received no such extra compensation.
“I was working in the ICU every day,” said Eunice Zamorano, an environmental services (EVS) employee who cleaned rooms where coronavirus patients had been treated, with only gloves and a surgical mask for protection. “It was a very scary time. [But] we didn’t get an extra pay due to COVID.”