Nurses slam hospitals, CDC for not doing more
Nurses across California are publicly raising concerns about how hospitals are handling coronavirus patients and criticizing the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for loosening its recommendations on what type of face masks can be used to prevent infections.
They also are urging hospital administrations to do a better job of notifying health care workers when they’ve been exposed to patients with coronavirus.
On Tuesday, the CDC updated its guidance to health workers caring for patients with “known or suspected COVID-19” to state that face masks are an “acceptable alternative” when the more protective N95 respirators that filter out about 95% of airborne particles aren’t available.
Looser-fitting surgical face masks are an acceptable alternative “when the supply chain of respirators cannot meet the demand,” the guidelines say. As N95 respirators have been in high demand, the guidance says they should be prioritized for workers with the highest exposure risk.
Nurses aren’t buying the advice, noting the disease poses an occupational hazard for them on the front lines of care.
“If nurses and health care workers aren’t protected, that means patients and the public are not protected,” said Bonnie Castillo, a nurse and executive director of National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association. “This is a major public health crisis of unknown proportions. Now is not the time to be weakening our standards and protections, or cutting corners. Now is the time we should be stepping up our efforts.”
At a rally outside Alta
Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley — one of about 10 that took place around California — nurses criticized the hospital system for not ensuring all health care workers have adequate gear to protect themselves and vulnerable patients from the spread of the disease.
Others said hospital networks — not just Summit but also Kaiser Permanente and local county hospitals — have not been taking adequate steps to notify healthcare workers about their exposure to patients with COVID-19 or to get them tested.
Summit nurse Michael Hill said “anyone exposed should be put on precautionary leave with pay” and noted that’s currently not happening.
“If exposed, you’re expected to come into work and put on a mask until you get sick and fall over,” he said.
A representative from Sutter Health, which oversees the medical center and others in Northern California, referred questions about the system’s protocols for health care workers to the California Hospital Association, saying it follows the guidance set by that organization.
Calls made to the California Hospital Association were not immediately returned.
A written statement from Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s regional chief nurse executive, Ann Williamson, said the network’s health care workers have been trained and are “properly equipped and prepared to safely care for patients with any suspected or confirmed case.”
“Based on the published evidence, the virus is spread through contact with respiratory droplets from someone with the virus — like through a cough or a sneeze,” the statement says. “The CDC has advised that infection control protocols effective against droplet-spread disease are appropriate and safe to use against COVID-19. We, like other health care systems, have used droplet protection protocols for decades, and these are similar to the methods used to treat droplet-borne diseases such as influenza.”
“This is a public health crisis. We need hospital leadership to get it together,” Rochelle PardueOkimoto, a nurse in the Alta Bates’ neonatal intensive care unit and an El Cerrito City Council member, said at Wednesday’s rally. “While they may be trying, it’s not a place for all patients at this time. We need to keep patients safe. We need personal protective gear.”
Martha Kuhl, a pediatric oncology nurse at Alta Bates, said that although nurses are treating “patients sick with respiratory symptoms, without testing, we won’t know.”
Testing is being done only at public health laboratories right now, according to the California Department of Public Health, but soon a commercial test will be available to hospitals.
Kuhl noted that right now, because not everyone with respiratory symptoms is being tested, “We can spread it without knowing and be exposed without knowing.”
“This is a public health crisis. We need hospital leadership to get it together.”
— Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto, a nurse in the Alta Bates’ neonatal intensive care unit and an El Cerrito City Council member