Four bilingual front office staff are being transferred out of the county's tuberculosis clinic. County officials say they'll be replaced and the public won't notice the difference, but the displaced workers disagree.
County officials say budget cuts and civil service rules are requiring them to make the changes in the TB clinic. San Diego County has California's ninth highest rate of TB.
Yvonne Silva is the current head admissions clerk. She says all of her clerks have experience dealing with TB patients. She questions whether the replacements will be up to par.
"These people are not going to be able to recognize people with TB," Silva argues. "They're not trained for it. It’s ridiculous what they're doing. You know, they could have taken one or two out of here and we could have survived, honestly. But they wiped us all out."
Most of the patients at the TB clinic speak Spanish. County officials say they don't know whether the new clerks will be bilingual.
