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Survivors of the fires in California may have mental health concerns for months to come. Exposure to wildfires is correlated with an increase in conditions like depression and anxiety. And in Los Angeles, hundreds of mental health care workers are on strike. NPR's Katia Riddle reports.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: When she heard about the fires, Adriana Webb thought immediately of work.
ADRIANA WEBB: A lot of my patients live in that area, and I'm very worried about them.
RIDDLE: She works for Kaiser Permanente. That's the biggest provider of health care in the state. Webb is an infectious disease social worker. Many of the people she works with are living with HIV. She feels certain some of them had to evacuate.
WEBB: I worry about who's going to be helping them process through that and also the mental and psychological needs that come from having your safety and security ripped away from you.
RIDDLE: Ideally, it would be her helping them, but she hasn't spoken with them in months. She's on strike. She and a colleague are, on this day, volunteering at a recovery center in downtown Los Angeles. Kassaundra Gutierrez-Thompson is a psychiatric social worker with Kaiser Permanente as well. She's standing in a warehouse, organizing donations.
KASSAUNDRA GUTIERREZ-THOMPSON: So it's been pretty amazing to just see a constant input of local restaurants and, you know, different organizations bringing everything they can from food, to, like, we just saw masks. We had water this morning.
RIDDLE: Both of these therapists say they are glad to be involved in the relief effort, but this is not ideal. They miss their patients. Here's Adriana Webb again.
WEBB: Yeah, it's awful. I feel so terrible. But I also know that by being complicit in this system, nothing's ever going to change.
RIDDLE: One change this group is seeking from Kaiser Permanente is scheduling, more time for their patients and more time in between patients.
WEBB: Kaiser treats their therapists like factory workers. Like, we see patients back to back to back without breaks in our day, with no time to treatment plan, no time to coordinate.
RIDDLE: There are about 2,500 mental health workers in their union. More than half are on strike. These therapists say they are so pressed for time, they can't go to the bathroom.
GUTIERREZ-THOMPSON: We had a colleague who had to get a doctor's note because she's pregnant, and she wasn't being able to get bathroom breaks, and she still had issues. We're not getting water breaks.
RIDDLE: Rhonda Chabran is vice president of behavioral health for Kaiser Permanente in southern California. She says that these therapists are provided with breaks in between appointments.
RHONDA CHABRAN: Ten minutes between each session is industry standard, and that really is the way that we expect our therapists to practice.
RIDDLE: Chabran says Kaiser Permanente is negotiating with the union on this point, however. She also says the organization will be able to meet increased mental health needs in the wake of the fire because they staffed up, anticipating the strike.
CHABRAN: We took it upon ourselves to really plan for this and make sure we could cover all of our members with timely appointments no matter what the occurrence was.
RIDDLE: Scheduling is not the only issue. The union is pushing for other things, like an increase in pay and benefits. That would bring them in line with other kinds of caregivers. The issue of parity for mental health workers is something that California Senator Scott Wiener has tried to address through legislation.
SCOTT WIENER: Mental health and physical health are the same and should be treated the same. We need to stop pretending that mental health treatment is somehow optional. It's not optional.
RIDDLE: He says enforcement, both across the country and the state, has just not kept up with mental health parity legislation. The fires have exposed this need.
WIENER: Now it's time to make sure that those laws are being fully implemented and enforced, and that's what the strike against Kaiser is about. It's about ensuring full compliance with the law.
RIDDLE: The wildfires violently destroyed parts of Los Angeles. Now Senator Wiener says it's within human control to limit their ongoing emotional damage.
Katia Riddle, NPR News, Los Angeles. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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