Hospital Workers In Unsafe Conditions Fear They'll Get Too Sick To Care For Patients
America’s hospital workers are afraid. Each day, nurses, doctors and other hospital employees are working their shifts amid the novel coronavirus pandemic in conditions so unsafe, there’s a growing fear they will become too sick to work and will spread the virus to co-workers and patients alike before they are diagnosed.
A shortage of health care workers during the expected surge of COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks would severely weaken the already lackluster and inadequate U.S. response to the outbreak. If more nurses, physicians, technicians, housekeepers, security guards and other employees are infected, hospitals won’t be able to function at full capacity and patients won’t be able to get the care they need at the time when it’s needed most.
The situation varies from hospital to hospital, but the overarching message from health care workers is loud and clear: They feel they are putting their lives and the lives of their colleagues and patients in danger. Almost 7 in 10 health care workers are concerned that they or their family members will become ill from the coronavirus, according to survey findings released last week by the Henry. J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
The chief complaint from nurses and other health care workers around the country, for now, is the lack of personal protective equipment, also known as PPE. There is a nationwide shortage of some supplies, including the N95 masks that are best suited to protecting workers from the coronavirus, and personnel in some hospitals are resorting to using garbage bags or New York Yankees rain ponchos as gowns.
But the problems go deeper. Health care workers told HuffPost of constantly shifting directives from hospital administrators about safety procedures, dangerously relaxed hygienic standards and a pecking order within hospital staff that leaves some workers with little to no access to equipment to protect themselves from infection.
‘No, These Are For Special People’
“Right...
