San Diego Council Members Lobbied For Lifeguard Health Coverage

San Diego lifeguards were back at City Hall Monday, pressing the Council to provide "presumptive" health insurance for illnesses contracted on-the-job.

Police officers and fire fighters have presumptive health coverage.

But that's not a benefit for the city's 100 full-time lifeguards.

Their labor unit's tried shaming the mayor and Council over that.

Here's a voice-over excerpt from a video they've produced: "While doing this job, lifeguards are exposed to bodily fluids and fluids that can lead to meningitis, cancer and hepatitis, among other diseases. In many instances they are not able to don adequate personal protective equipment in the immediacy to save a person's life ."

In an average year, lifeguards make nearly 6-thousand water rescues and dozens of cliff rescues, administering medical aid to thousands of beachgoers and others along the city's 70 miles of coastline.

Those numbers could escalate in El Nino conditions.

They say when they contract illnesses in the course of their work, it should be "presumed" that exposure to elements was the source of their illnesses -- as it is under health coverage for the city's 3-thousand police officers and fire fighters.

But it's not.

"It doesn't cost anything, so it's clearly a lack of respect for what we do. That's the only way you can put it,” says Sgt. Ed Harris, spokesman for the San Diego Lifeguard Assn. “And it’s a lack of understanding. But mostly it's politics.

“So we're hoping we've now educated the Council enough. It takes six votes. We need one of the Republicans to come across the line and do the right thing."

Late Monday, City Council members and the mayor's labor negotiating team went behind closed doors in executive session to consider the issue.

So far, there’s been no word on the outcome – if any -- of their deliberations.

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