Nurses, Staff Sound Alarm: Hospitals Gambling with Worker’s Lives and Public Health
Hospital Workers, Forced to Take Their Contaminated Garments Home, May Be Spreading COVID 19
4/6/2020 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: WeDoTheWork@WDTW.org
“We know every day we go to work we're risking our lives and the lives of our families without the proper gear. But we still run in to save our patients knowing no one is going to save us. No one is going to save us but ourselves.”
- RN, United Hospital ER
Frontline healthcare workers are speaking out louder and louder as COVID 19 numbers multiply throughout the Twin Cities. As our work conditions become rapidly more perilous, we’re seeing issues, policies, and often contradictory declarations coming from hospital executives and administrators that not only place us at increased risk of infection but also slow staff response times, both of which endanger hospital staff, patients, and the larger community.
“Nurses are hurting on the frontlines. Our cry is not being heard, and we do not feel adequately protected. We need to have N95s for minimum protection and hospital issued scrubs to keep the virus out of our homes. We put our families, our communities, and our loved ones at risk because of this insufficient standard. I want to see my parents and brothers but I can’t put them at risk. We are mentally and emotionally exhausted providing the best possible care to our patients working under such high hazard conditions.”
- Chloe Adrienne RN, Allina COVID 19 Unit
Months have elapsed from the original outbreak of COVID 19, yet frontline healthcare workers continue to be excluded from hospitals’ central decision-making bodies and “Incident Command” centers which are typically composed of senior hospital administrators. As doctors, nurses, EMTs and other hospital staff, we’re left to await orders and policies written by unknown administrators with questionable clinical experience.
Among the immediate concerns we frontline healthcare workers cite:
- Hospital policies and procedures that confuse or contradict globally accepted medical and scientific standards
- Administrators’ slow, unresponsive, or outright oppositional responses to the needs of frontline personnel
- Inadequate PPE for procedures, and inadequate use of existing hospital resources such as scrubs and hoods necessary for intubation
- Use of PPE that is exceeds its manufactured limitations
- Intimidation of healthcare workers that speak out or take measures to protect workplace, patient, and community safety
- Lack of hazard pay and other compensatory measures for frontline staff
- Exclusion of frontline health care workers from central decision making and communications
“I have been desperately pleading with management and HR to wear hospital-provided scrubs in the ED to lessen the chance of bringing COVID 19 home to my family and community. These scrubs are already provided for staff to use when you contaminate your own set of scrubs. To protect my family and loved ones I have decided to wear the hospital scrubs while I work. Management and HR are using intimidating tactics by calling everyone individually into the office every day to be questioned about the wearing of the scrubs. Management has told me that they are not going to reprimand me for wearing the scrubs and that they are just collecting information. We should not have to fight to protect ourselves, patients, our families and communities. Where is their compassion and concern for their employees? It seems lacking, and we are feeling let down, mentally exhausted and disposable, like trash.”
- Michelle Visnovec, Emergency Medical Technician, ER
Hospital staff are now testing positive for COVID 19, and hospitalizations of staff are increasing. Because Minnesota has experienced a slower acceleration of contagion and illness, it is critical that healthcare workers be given adequate authority and resources to mount the most effective and energetic response so as to protect ourselves, our patients, and the community we serve.
“I work with rehab patients on unit 8920 / 8940. In ten years as a nurse I have never seen so much fear and uncertainty. Where are the supplies of PPE going to come from? How will we adapt to emergency conditions that change every day? Allina needs to listen to its frontline staff and bring nurses into the emergency response planning.”
- Bob Kucera, RN
We are asking the public to support us in tangible ways. Please take the time to do the following:
1. Comment on Allina social media and let them know you are hearing us and our critical demands
2. Speak to your friends in frontline roles and encourage them to speak up and tell their story
3. Tweet the CEOs of hospital systems like Penny Wheeler (Allina) and James Hereford (M Health Fairview) to hold them publicly accountable for their role in exacerbating the crisis and risking frontline health care workers
4. Follow We Do The Work on Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube and visit our website, WDTW.org, for more updates from the frontlines.
"My experience has been one of fear. We have heard what has happened with healthcare workers dying in New York and Italy and fear that will happen to us as well. Most nurses I know feel that getting infected is not a matter of if, but when. We need proper PPE to protect ourselves, which means the use of an N95 on every shift. Nurses and our expertise are not easily replaced. Extremely serious infection control needs to be implemented now or we will be seeing a dire shortage of nurses due to illness."
- Joel Enright, RN, COVID Rule Out Unit
Thank you and stay safe and strong.
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