Infected health staff can stay on the job
Faced with an exponential rise in COVID-19 cases across California, the state’s Department of Public Health now says that health care workers who test positive for the virus can remain on the job — at least through Feb. 1.
The policy shift is prompted by the need to keep hospitals functioning during the current surge, the department said. Allowing infected health workers to continue their duties is needed “due to the critical staffing shortages currently being experienced across the health care continuum,” according to the health department’s letter, posted online Saturday, to acute care and psychiatric hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.
The loosened requirements apply only to health care workers who are asymptomatic, and they will need to wear N95 masks with respirators rather than standard medical face masks. The department wants such workers to treat only patients who already have tested positive, the letter said, although it acknowledges that “this may not always be possible in settings such as the emergency department” where everyone’s infection status is not always known.
Experts believe the surge driven by the highly infectious omicron variant of the coronavirus will peak within a couple of weeks, based on patterns elsewhere.
Until now, anyone on a hospital staff who tested positive was required to stay off work for five days and not return until after testing negative. That will not apply during the duration of the interim policy. Nor will medical workers need to spend time at home quarantined if they are exposed to someone with COVID, assuming the workers show no symptoms.
Unions representing hospital staff voiced opposition to the new policy.
“When we got wind of this decision, we were beyond appalled,” Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, president of the California Nurses Association, said Sunday. “For COVID-positive nurses to (probably) deal with uninfected patients, that will only lead to more illness.”
The association called on the department and Gov. Gavin Newsom to rescind the new guidance. The same request was made by the Service Employees International Union, which represents many health care workers.
“Allowing employers to bring back workers who may still be infectious is one of the worst ideas I have heard during this pandemic, and that’s really saying something,” Bob Schoonover, president of SEIU California, said in a statement.
California guidance for the general public still calls for people testing positive to remain in isolation for five days and exit isolation only after testing negative.