State investigates COVID outbreak at Norwich hospital.
NORWICH — About 400 nurses have returned to work at Backus Hospital following a two-day strike over wages and labor conditions.
Absent from the picket line were at least eight nurses who have quarantined due to COVID-19 symptoms. They are part of a coronavirus outbreak at the Norwich facility that is under investigation by the state Department of Public Health.
Av Harris, a spokesman for the DPH, confirmed the investigation on Thursday. But he declined to provide more information, citing the investigation.
Backus Hospital officials would not confirm whether there is an outbreak among staff at the facility, but said “there is increased community spread throughout the state and especially in eastern Connecticut.”
The hospital is located at the heart of a hot zone of recent coronavirus activity. Norwich is part of a cluster of eastern Connecticut municipalities that largely comprise the state’s new “red alert” areas, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Thursday. The municipalities on the list have an average of 15 or more new cases per day per 100,000 population over a two-week period.
Amid the influx of COVID cases, Backus Hospital nurses organized a two-day walkout that stemmed from months of stalled contract negotiations between the hospital, part of the Hartford Healthcare system, and the Backus Federation of Nurses, AFT Local 5149.
The hospital pulled nurses from other HHC facilities and limited intakes during this week’s strike to deal with patient care, officials said.
Two units were closed — oncology and a step down unit for cardiac care — with the patients transferred to other departments within the hospital, said Sherri Dayton, a Backus Hospital Emergency Department nurse and president of the union. Elective surgeries were also canceled, and patients who needed to be admitted were diverted to other hospitals, starting a few days before the strike, Dayton said.
“It was far from business as usual,” Dayton said.
The hospital was operating under a strike contingency plan that was approved and monitored by the state Department of Public Health, HCC officials said. DPH officials have not released any information on whether the strike negatively impacted patient care.
“During the nurses’ two-day strike, fully trained and licensed nurses from around the state provided safe care for our patients, and the hospital worked as planned with the Department of Public Health to ensure the highest quality and safety,” said Donna Handley, president of Backus Hospital. “It’s our commitment to serve our patients in the hospital, and negotiate a contract at the bargaining table.”
Pay and health care are driving the negotiations, but equally as important are the hospital’s policies regarding patient care, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, Dayton said.
“We are being portrayed as greedy nurses, but we are fighting for our patients,” Dayton said. “We aren’t just fighting for ourselves.”
The facility has been the location of several COVID-19 outbreaks, including one in late August that was connected to a resident of Three Rivers skilled nursing facility in Norwich, Dayton said. That outbreak sickened Backus Hospital nurse Shanon Pereira whose 2-year-old son and her mother were also ill with COVID-19.
Pereira is back at work after being out for a month, she said. The 31-year-old nurse said she is still winded when she exerts herself. She never cared for the patient from Three Rivers, but she was in close contact with others who did due to the nature of their job, she said.
“Eleven or 12 people who I work with also tested positive,” Pereira said. “There was a chunk of us who never even cared for the patient from Three Rivers.”
Nurses have been instructed to wear N-95 or surgical masks until they are soiled or damaged, Dayton and Pereira said.
Both women said they feel comfortable asking for a new mask at the start of every shift. But Pereira said not all nurses
feel empowered to ask and have been following the policy, which they say may be contributing to the number of outbreaks.
“Does every nurse feel empowered to knock on their manager’s door and say, ‘I need a new mask?’” Pereira said. “It can be very intimidating.”
Dayton said staff shortages have been a growing problem in recent years with the patient-tonurse ratio increasing to as much as 8-to-1. Some units require nurses to check on patients every hour, she said. But she said it’s nearly impossible to meet that standard when each nurse has so many patients.