Nurses overworked, treated as ‘robots’
With about 40 COVID-19 cases among its health workers, the dwindling number of working staff has no choice but to acquire more workload
Nurses from the San Lazaro hospital, one of the government institutions handling COVID-19 patients, claimed that they have
been treated as ‘robots not human beings’ in their clamor for protection amid other health workers who reportedly tested positive for the disease.
In a statement, members of the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) said that with about 40 COVID-19 cases among its health workers, the dwindling number of working staff has no choice but to acquire more workload.
“More than 40 employees are positive for COVID-19, as of today, with more than 20 of those admitted in the hospital COVID wards and other quarantined at home while waiting for vacancy of hospital beds to accommodate them,” FNU stated on Friday.
They stated that for weeks many staff have been mentally and physically exhausted from long hours of work and limited means of transportation.
“Some fear displacement from their current temporary dwellings as some nursing staff have been asked to move out despite no place to transfer to,” the group said.
Nurses also said that due to a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), most health workers have been instructed to reuse their PPE for a 12-hour shift in the hospital with others forced to buy their own.
“Nursing staff assigned to COVID wards are provided with only 1 N95 for the whole shift and are instructed to reuse them whilst some doctors have to buy their own to protect themselves, due to insufficient numbers of PPE,” they said.
A nursing staff member told The Daily Tribune that the San Lazaro hospital has already had problems with their PPE supplies even before the pandemic which has only improved with donations from private companies.
“It was a problem from the start even before the COVID-19 pandemic that with handling PTB patients, which is an airborne disease that requires the use of N95 as protection, only the surgical or medical masks are supplied for use,” FNU San Lazaro Hospital Chapter president Ms. Janice Budy said.
“Now that the donations are depleted, the hospital still was not able to procure such resulting in us risking infection with the conservation measures being implemented,” she added.
The group likewise emphasized that even though the hospital has been allocating more beds for a possible surge of cases, no staff, however, can man the additional wards.
On top of it, they also said that the labor of transferring patients and heavy equipment with limited staff has led others to acquire injuries due to the heavy load of going to different floors.
“Transferring patients and heavy equipment to the upper floors via the ramp (as the elevator has not been functioning for years) has resulted [in] injuries to healthcare workers,” it stated.
In addition, the group said that there had been no increases in their salaries in spite of the earlier policy pronouncements mentioned on the COVID hazard pay among health workers.
“Physically, we are exhausted while our morale is very low. Our spirits have been weakened by the unjust provision and deceiving policy of the COVID hazard pay and special risk allowance,” they said.
Even on top of the problems faced by health workers, a hospital official from San Lazaro Hospital, in an interview also on Friday, revealed that its COVID ward has been almost at its full capacity with the increase of admission in the last two weeks.
“These are not just mild patients, most were really moderate to severe of COVID so right now we are really focusing on critical patients so that hopefully they can be released,” the chief of the San Lazaro adult infectious division, Dr. Rontgene Solante said.
Solante pointed out that even as 52 out of its designated 65 beds for coronavirus patients are currently occupied, with 47 confirmed cases, the hospital still continues to accept more patients.
“As much as possible, we have to accommodate them we cannot leave them because the patients will suffer if they keep transferring hospitals,” he said.
Earlier, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire identified 11 hospitals in the National Capital Region nearing its maximum capacity on designated COVID facilities.
However, she said that hospitals have already been advised to allot 20 percent more of their beds for COVID-19 patients as cases continue to rise.
To date, the Department of Health and the San Lazaro hospital management have not yet released any statement regarding this matter.