Nurses’ union urges more frontline support amid pandemic

Posted

The Michigan Nurses Association is growing concerned that many hospitals in Michigan have yet to implement protective protocols and equipment for their staff as more confirmed cases of coronavirus crop up nationwide.

“We know that everyone who is on the frontlines needs to be kept safe so that we can continue taking care of our patients under these extraordinary circumstances,” according to a statement from MNA President Jamie Brown. “These measures are necessary to keep both frontline health care professionals and communities safe.”

Brown — without naming specific health facilities — is encouraging all hospitals to implement a clearer standard for protective equipment like proper masks, to designate funds for nurses who can’t work because they’re infected or exposed to COVID-19 and to bar “vulnerable” nurses for caring for virally infected patients.

Brown’s statement arrived days after two doctors — in New Jersey and Washington — were hospitalized in critical condition as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. According to The New York Times, the spread has only reinforced concerns that the nation’s frontline medical workers are particularly vulnerable to the virus.

Dean Randolph Rasch, of Michigan State University’s College of Nursing, said nurses often “fight on the front lines” of any health emergency. He has long been concerned with a rise in nosocomial or hospital-acquired infections, a serious cause of illness and death across the country. And COVID-19 is no exception to the risk.

“Every day, nurses care for patients who may have infectious disease, contagion, but they don’t have symptoms. They know how to care for them in a way that they don’t put themselves, or other patients who are vulnerable, at risk,” Rasch explained. “The main thing nurses need to think of is make sure that they are scrupulously following those precautions they’ve learned to take to protect their own health and the health of others.”

But there is a crucial difference between rules of contact and protection given to the general public and the role of health care workers. Rasch said physical contact is often required for quality medical treatment, requiring health care workers to look out for themselves as coronavirus continues to spread locally and across the globe.

He also said many hospitals have stopped admitting students for training in hospitals as the virus spreads, citing a limited amount of protective equipment. Although he’s not aware of any equipment shortages in Greater Lansing, nursing students at MSU and other universities have since had to shift to a virtual clinic experience.

“I know it’s on everyone’s mind,” Rasch added, suggesting hospitals consider switching to reusable equipment.

Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, earlier this week also discussed “desperately needed measures” to better protect its more than 1.4 million members — including thousands of health care providers. He listed several suggestions for how hospitals can improve service.

Among them: Expand paid leave to employees who require time off during the pandemic, immediately fund state and local governments, provide permanent sick leave for all Americans, reimburse laid-off employees for health care costs and enact “bigger changes” that make it easier for employees to unionize and demand change.

Policies for employees at local health care providers (like Sparrow and McLaren Greater Lansing) are largely unclear. Calls and emails to officials with questions about paid sick leave and additional safety measures at those hospitals were not returned. A Sparrow spokesman, however, said the hospital is “fully staffed and equipped.”

Part of being equipped, at least for Sparrow, involves an enhanced screening process for caregivers and visitors. Makeshift tents outside the hospital help staff to ask guests about possible flu-like symptoms. Visitors with sustained fevers and contact with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are “respectfully” told to leave the property.

“Every year or two, we have a crisis, even though it might not be at the level of COVID-19,” Rasch added. “We’ve had Ebola, Sars, MERS. This might be the new reality. We should be prepared as health care providers, and we have to be proactive about how we include medical students.”

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here




Connect with us