‘These people don’t know my life’: County health workers watch as supervisors vote on whether to cut their jobs

The temperature on the fifth floor of Santa Cruz County’s government building was comfortable Tuesday morning, but Diane Dymesich was feeling the heat as she nervously paced the hallway outside of the bustling board of supervisors chambers. 

Dymesich, who just turned 57 and bubbles with a heart-on-her-sleeve energy, has worked as a phlebotomist at the Santa Cruz Health Center for 21 years, drawing blood samples from the county’s sickest, poorest and highest–risk residents. But she was unsure whether she’d have a job come July 1. Her employment, and her long-held plans for retirement, now came down to a majority decision by five elected county lawmakers sitting behind the chamber dais, who would soon vote on whether to approve health department cuts and lay off nearly 12 full-time employees — Dymesich among them.

For one’s employment to come down to board vote sounds more like the experience of a Wall Street executive than a middle-class government health care worker. Yet, that was the scene for Dymesich and her colleagues on Tuesday, and all they could do was watch.  

“For me, it’s really hard, because this isn’t about my job performance, or my merit, or anything that I’ve had control over,” Dymesich said, fanning herself with the day’s agenda packet as she watched the five supervisors debate the budget. “These people don’t know my life, don’t know my story, don’t know anything about me but are making these decisions about my entire life going forward. I had a plan for my retirement, but now, I don’t know.” 

Dymesich then turned to her colleague, Jeff Zajac, who stood silently preparing his thoughts for the public comment portion of the day’s meeting. Zajac has more than 20 years of experience as a phlebotomist, but joined the county lab only eight years ago. Now in his early 60s, he works as a senior assistant, supervising Dymesich and the other four full-time employees between the Watsonville and Santa Cruz health centers.

Zajac looked up over his reading glasses with a heavy, exhausted stare, gripping a maroon folder that matched the color of his long-sleeved shirt. He had not slept nor eaten the night before. He began drafting his public comments at 4:30 a.m., in a fit of restlessness, after he realized Tuesday likely marked the last time he could speak up to the people responsible for deciding this aspect of his and his coworkers’ fates. 

“I just turned 62, so starting a new job is very scary,” Zajac said. “At the beginning of last night, I was feeling pretty hopeless and numb, and a lot of disappointment in what’s happening.” 

Dymesich, Zajac and their coworkers had known for more than a month that this past Tuesday would be decision day. In late April, the county’s since-departed health services agency director, Mónica Morales, announced her proposal to lay off about 12 people and close the county’s blood lab and radiology services as a way to mitigate a growing fiscal crisis within the health department. Staff have said the county’s health agency has had long-simmering structural issues — exacerbated by growing uncertainty around the state and federal dollars — and needed to be “right-sized.”  

As Zajac and Dymesich stood at the back of the chambers and watched interim Health Services Agency Director Jennifer Herrera struggle to explain to Supervisor Manu Koenig why her department couldn’t offer any alternatives to the layoffs and lab closures, they were joined by another health care worker awaiting their fate: Fadi Ayyad, the chief radiologic technologist at the Santa Cruz Health Center’s radiology services. Ayyad, 38, arrived in beige medical scrubs, a scruffy beard and close-cropped black hair. Like Zajac, he hardly slept the night before, and called the past month-and-a-half wait for Tuesday’s budget vote “devastating.” 

“It was pretty stressful yesterday just knowing that today is the day,” Ayyad said. “I had no appetite. I didn’t eat dinner, I didn’t eat breakfast today. It’s taken a mental toll on me because it’s not like I did anything wrong. I’ll be driving around, all happy, and then suddenly I will realize that, oh s–t, I’m about to lose my income.” 

Ayyad has worked in county radiology for six years and can talk long and passionately about how X-rays, which he calls “the backbone of health care” and the picture worth a thousand words for doctors. He called working for the county “my dream job,” a feeling buttressed by the stability and benefits of government service. Ayyad’s long plan to retire as a Santa Cruz County employee was now flipped upside down. 

“I had faith in this,” Ayyad told Lookout. “When I got this job, I was ready to be committed to this. This was the job. You just never think they would get rid of services.” 

As Ayyad took a seat, the heat inside the chambers was rising as the supervisors continued what felt like a cross-examination of Health Service Agency executives and managers. The lawmakers criticized HSA for failing to bring alternatives to the layoffs despite multiple requests, and for failing to show their work, which left the elected officials with many unanswered questions as they prepared to vote. 

“I think it would be helpful for us and the community if this was a little bit more transparent,” Koenig said. “I understand some of the other solutions you looked at were not as good, but nevertheless, there must have been multiple options weighed and I think that’s sort of the question mark that is lingering in the air and doesn’t seem answered.” 

County Personnel Director Ajita Patel told the supervisors her team had been working with each of the employees who would be laid off, trying to find them placement within the county. She said some had chosen to retire, while she expected others to receive a county job offer by Friday. 

“There are a couple who only want to seek placement at equal pay, and that is a little challenging because we don’t have a lot of vacancies at that level,” Patel said. 

Late last week, County Executive Officer Carlos Palacios proposed extending the blood lab for another three months as it became clear the health department was not ready to make a smooth transition to private providers. As the supervisors discussed this option, it only exacerbated Dymesich and Zajac’s confusion about their future. They and their coworkers had already begun applying for other jobs within the county. What were they supposed to do now if they got one?

“Look, I don’t know man, at this point I just need them to make a decision so I can move on and make decisions about the rest of my life,” Dymesich said. 

Dymesich described the past several weeks as a sort of “Hunger Games” scenario among her coworkers. Those seeking work are prioritizing jobs within the county so they can continue building their pension and retirement plans. However, all of the county jobs, Dymesich and Zajac said, are demotions that come with pay cuts, and all of the coworkers are competing against one another for the positions. 

Dymesich said she is in the final stages of accepting a job with a 31% pay decrease just so she can keep her county benefits for the next eight years before retirement. 

“The hiring officer will probably call me asking for a reference for Diane because I’m her supervisor,” Zajac said, with Dymesich at his side. “But we’re going for the same job. And it’s like, ‘Yeah, Diane’s great, but I’m better.’” 

Later in the day, hours after Zajac, Dymesich and Ayyad returned to work at the Santa Cruz Health Center, the board of supervisors unanimously voted to approve the Health Services Agency budget, but extend the blood lab and radiology services through September. As part of the extension, supervisors said they wanted the county’s health executives to work with front-line staff involved with lab and radiology to come up with some alternative options to shutting down the services.

Over the phone, Dymesich called the extension “interesting” but said she’s unsure how the lab will stay open for another three months when she and much of the staff are in the process of getting other jobs. 

“It’s kind of too late, isn’t it? Because if any of us get a job, we have to take it,” Dymesich said. “None of these jobs are going to wait around for us to finish our lab role in three months. I feel a lot of loyalty to the lab, but we have to do what we have to do. It’s all around not a good situation for us. The whole thing just seems really sad.”  

Zajac said he was hoping to have more closure but that Tuesday’s vote puts him and his coworkers in “an even tougher position,” in which they either take a more secure job and abandon their coworkers, or continue with uncertainty through the summer. 

“If I find a good job I’m not going to put myself in this position of not knowing what’s going to happen for another three months,” Zajac said. “I’ve concluded that I need to take care of myself. I want to stay with the county. But there is a bad taste in my mouth as a consequence of what has happened over the last two months.” 

Ayyad, on the other hand, plans to ride out the extension at the radiology center. He said Watsonville Community Hospital had reached out to him about a radiology position that he now planned to decline, or at least try to defer. 

“A gray cloud is still over our heads regardless of the answer today, and that gray cloud was supposed to disappear,” Ayyad said. “I was ready to start applying and move on, but now it’s like we have another three months of this.”  

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