Category: Daily News

The Labor Commissioner’s Office has reached a $1.6 million settlement with the owners of Z & Y Restaurant in San Francisco, securing compensation for 22 workers for unpaid minimum wages, overtime, split shift premiums and tips identified in a wage theft investigation from 2019. Including expected post-settlement interest, each worker will receive on average approximately $73,000 under this settlement from payments that began today after the employer entered into an agreement with the Labor Commissioner’s Office.

“California law prohibits employers from taking tips left by customers for servers,” said California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower. “Under this settlement, the employer will pay workers back all of those stolen tips totaling over $400,000.”

The Labor Commissioner’s Office learned of the potential violations in January 2019 after receiving a referral from the Chinese Progressive Association and Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus.

The investigation found that 22 servers and kitchen workers were not paid properly. The servers were paid hourly and the kitchen staff were paid a fixed salary that was below minimum wage and did not include overtime. The employer illegally kept tips left for the servers and did not pay servers split shift premiums when they were scheduled to work both the lunch and dinner shifts.

In April 2020, the Labor Commissioner issued wage assessments and penalties totaling over $1.4 million to the owners of Z & Y Restaurant Inc. The employer appealed the citations.

In September 2020, the Labor Commissioner filed a lawsuit to prosecute the restaurant owners for violations not covered by the citations, including the theft of tips, violations of California’s Paid Sick Leave law and record keeping violations. With the hearing on the citation appeal approaching, the employer reached a settlement with the Labor Commissioner that resolved the citations, the lawsuit, and pending wage claims that had been separately filed by four workers represented by the Asian Law Caucus.

Notification has been delivered to the current and former restaurant workers of their expected settlement payments and workers began receiving settlement payments with an average of approximately $73,000 per worker based on the number of hours worked during the audit period and the tips that were appropriated by the employer. The settlement also includes $9,550 in civil penalties payable to the state.

“A significant amount of the payment due to workers in this case is from stolen tips,” added Labor Commissioner García-Brower. “Workers must be proactive to protect their rights. Keep track of the tips you think you should have received to help support your claim and when approaching your employer about this issue, document the conversation and have a witness.”

In a scathing report leaked to NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit, federal health regulators blasted Good Samaritan Hospital management for failing to address “serious, systemic, and recurring issues” that put numerous patients in harm’s way.

Officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) warn the hospital will no longer be paid for taking care of Medicare patients unless the hospital corrects a series of deficiencies outlined in the 65-page report.

Health inspectors took aim at the hospital’s management – including its chief executive officer, chief medical officer and chief nursing officer – but also detailed staffing and training issues that led to mistakes and direct injury to patients. The report states management’s failures placed “13 of sampled 37 patients at risk for adverse events.”

This is the first time details of the CMS “Notice of Termination” against Good Samaritan Hospital are coming to light. NBC Bay Area first reported on the notice in July but did not have a copy of the report. The Investigative Unit requested the document multiple times from Good Samaritan Hospital, its parent company HCA Healthcare and federal regulators, but none of the agencies have released it. Over the weekend, NBC Bay Area obtained a copy through a hospital source and confirmed it with HCA.

Dr. Cheryl Damberg, a health services researcher at the non-profit RAND Corporation said that “Any time a hospital gets one of these notices, I think consumers should be concerned that the institution is not working to maintain the standards that the federal government has set forth,”

Officials from Good Samaritan Hospital and its parent company HCA Healthcare have declined multiple interview requests from NBC Bay Area over the past several months but said in a statement they’ve submitted a plan of correction that is currently under review by CMS.

“We addressed every issue noted by CMS and we are ensuring Good Samaritan is in full compliance,” Good Samaritan spokesperson Janine De La Vega wrote in a statement. “We have full confidence we will meet the CMS requirements and retain our Medicare status. Our top priority is to be a strong partner with the San Jose community as we have been for the past 25 years and provide safe high-quality care to those we have the privilege of serving every day.”  

Beyond documenting leadership failures at the hospital, inspectors detailed a litany of other issues, including nurse-to-patient staffing ratios that were out of compliance with state mandates on multiple occasions earlier this year.

The lack of adequate staffing led to overburdened nurses and mistakes in care, including at least 11 missed patient assessments and at least four instances where medications were not administered to ICU patients according to physician orders, according to the report.

“The cumulative effect of these systemic problems resulted in the hospital’s inability to ensure the provision of quality health care in a safe environment,” the report states.

Regulators also called into question the hospital’s training of staff and its evaluation of its own nurses’ competencies. In one case, a nurse reported she was given a patient she was not qualified to care for.

In two other cases, regulators said there wasn’t any “formal re-education” of staff when patients who were involuntarily hospitalized because of a mental health crisis were able to harm themselves. One of those patients was left in the bathroom alone, according to the report, and another was inappropriately discharged.

A High Desert physician remains in federal custody today after his arrest Wednesday on charges of illegally dispensing prescriptions for often-abused controlled substances – including opioid-based medications – during telemedicine sessions with “patients” from across the United States.

36 year old Dr. Raphael Tomas Malikian, who resides in Llano and Palmdale and called his medical practice Happy Family Medicine, was arrested Wednesday afternoon by special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

An indictment naming Malikian was unsealed at his arraignment Thursday evening, when Malikian entered not guilty pleas and a United States Magistrate Judge ordered him detained pending trial, which is currently scheduled for October 5.

Malikian is charged in an 11-count indictment with illegally distributing narcotics “while acting and intending to act outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.” The controlled substances that Malikian allegedly distributed are oxycodone, hydrocodone, alprazolam, promethazine and codeine.

The DEA investigation was prompted by multiple reports in February 2020 of suspicious prescriptions issued by Malikian. The indictment alleges specific incidents in which Malikian prescribed controlled substances without a medical purpose after seven telemedicine consultations – including one conducted entirely via text message – starting in April 2020 and continuing through July 2020. None of the consultations involved any physical exam or diagnostic tests, and the appointments lasted as little as 2 minutes and 20 seconds.

A federal judge on Thursday unsealed search warrants executed at Malikian’s residences in conjunction with his arrest. The affidavit in support of the search warrants outlines the DEA’s investigation, which included various undercover operations in which agents from the DEA and California DOJ posed as patients and received the prescriptions that form the basis of the indictment. The DEA agent who authored the affidavit concluded that Malikian “effectively sells prescriptions for controlled substances to patients upon request, and does so without obtaining a patient’s medical history or conducting a physical examination.”

According to the affidavit, an independent medical expert reviewed the interactions between Malikian and the undercover agents and “concluded that Malikian ‘did not thoroughly evaluate his patients before prescribing potent and potentially deadly medications, and had done so ‘without any regard to what is required of conscientious physicians in the United States before proceeding with controlled medications.”

A DEA investigator also reviewed patient records maintained by Malikian, which showed that Malikian saw patients across the United States and that about 43 percent of them shared common addresses, email addresses, “caregivers” or phone numbers with other patients. According to the affidavit, one of those patients was a convicted narcotics trafficker and another was stopped at Los Angeles International Airport while carrying over $19,000 in cash and approximately 1,764 Hydrocodone and Alprazolam pills.

Dr. Robert Wallace Malone is an American virologist and immunologist. His work has focused on mRNA technology, pharmaceuticals, and drug repurposing research.

He was a pioneer who helped develop mRNA vaccine technology, raised concerns about potential long-term autoimmune issues and other complications potentially arising from mRNA jabs. He showed concerns about the possibility that ‘imperfect’ vaccines might actually help foster more virulent COVID variants due to a phenomenon called “ADE”- antibody-dependent enhancement. Essentially, what doesn’t kill the virus makes it stronger.

He has been highly criticized during the beginning of the COVID pandemic for these views.

His views are gaining traction. A British scientist and academic named Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who is the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group. During a briefing, Sir Pollard warned Parliament that the UK likely won’t ever achieve herd immunity, thanks to the delta variant.

In remarks that risked undermining the government’s vaccination campaign, Sir Pollard, a professor of pediatric infection and immunity, warned Parliament on Tuesday that achieving herd immunity is likely “not a possibility” thanks to variants like delta.

Recently, a group of scientists estimated that the threshold for herd immunity might now be as high as 90% due to the delta variant. According to Pollard, we’re learning for the first time that herd immunity is magical thinking – and has always been magical thinking.

Since those who are vaccinated can still be infected by variants, “there is virtually nothing the UK can do” to eradicate COVID completely.

“We know very clearly with coronavirus that this current variant, the Delta variant, will still infect people who have been vaccinated, and that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus,” Pollard said.

He said it was unlikely that herd immunity will ever be reached, saying the next variant of the novel coronavirus will be “perhaps even better at transmitting in vaccinated populations.”

Pollard also shared what sounded like a subtle criticism of masks by saying that “We don’t have anything which will stop that transmission to other people.” As an example, he pointed to Israel, which saw new cases and hospitalizations nearly disappear before the new variant took hold, causing cases and hospitalizations to surge once again. Now, there have even been a handful of patients who have tested positive even after receiving their third dose of the Pfizer jab (which the US has only just approved for a third dose as well).

Even the White House is finally acknowledging that vaccines aren’t nearly as effective as they once believed, which is why the FDA has decided to approve the third dose. “I think everybody believes this wanes over time, the question is to what extent,” a senior Biden official told Axios. “Nobody wants to be behind the eight-ball here. We want to catch it before there’s an issue, and that’s why there is very intense scrutiny.”

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a new public health order on August 11, requiring all school staff to either show proof of full vaccination or be tested at least once per week.

The new policy for school staff will take effect August 12, 2021, and schools must be in full compliance by October 15, 2021. Robust and free testing resources are available to K-12 schools through the CA K-12 schools testing program.

In recent weeks, California claims it has led the nation in implementing measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, including:

– – Vaccine verification for state workers. Requires all state workers to either show proof of full vaccination or be tested at least once per week, and encourages local governments and other employers to adopt a similar protocol. Following California’s announcement, some of the largest California businesses and local governments followed suit, as did the federal government.
– – Vaccinations for health care workers. Requires workers in health care settings to be fully vaccinated or receive their second dose by September 30, 2021.
– – Universal masking in K-12 settings. Aligned with guidance from the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics, California was the first state to implement universal masking in school settings to keep students and staff safe while optimizing fully in-person instruction.
– – Medi-Cal vaccination incentives. $350 million in incentive payments to help close the vaccination gap between Medi-Cal beneficiaries and Californians as a whole, significantly stepping up outreach in underserved communities.
– – Statewide mask recommendation. In response to the spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations and new CDC guidance calling for masking, the state recommended mask use for indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status.

​CDPH said that the COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant challenge in California. COVID-19 vaccines are effective in reducing infection, serious disease, hospitalization, and death. At present, 63% of Californians 12 years of age and older are fully vaccinated with an additional 10% partially vaccinated. Children under the age of 12 are not currently eligible for any authorized vaccines.

And the CDPH added that California is currently experiencing the fastest increase in COVID-19 cases during the entire pandemic with 22.7 new cases per 100,000 people per day, with case rates increasing tenfold since early June. The Delta variant, which is two times more contagious than the original virus, is currently the most common variant causing new infections in California.