Nurses union file complaints with 16 state OSHA regulators over lack of coronavirus gear
National Nurses United, the union representing roughly 150,000 registered nurses nationwide, announced Friday that it has filed complaints against more than 125 hospitals in 16 states over hazardous working conditions.
The announcement comes after reports this week that a New York City nurse manager and a Georgia hospital worker infected with coronavirus died. The respiratory disease COVID-19 causes coughing, shortness of breath and fever and can lead to severe acute lower respiratory distress.
“This is a national emergency,” said Bonnie Castillo, the executive director of the nurses’ union, “and far too many hospitals are still failing to ensure that our caregivers who are placing their own safety at grave risk have the protections they need to stay at the bedside for their patients.”
The California Hospital Association did not immediately return a call for comment Friday afternoon.
While most NNU filings allege hospitals are not providing appropriate personal protective gear for their health care workers, the union also said some facilities are not putting infected patients or suspect cases into the right type of isolation rooms.
These violations, the union said, puts workers in a position where they can be infected by the new coronavirus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, and pass it along to other patients, their families, their co-workers, other community residents.
Already, in about a dozen cases, state regulators have directed hospitals to launch investigations and correct any violations or face an on-site investigation that could result in fines and citations.
At MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae, the nurses union said, Cal/OSHA regulators warned the hospital it “failed to provide necessary (personal protective equipment) to employees who may provide care to suspected COVID-19 cases.”
Regulators also informed the hospital that its exposure plan for COVID-19 did not meet state standards for workplace precaution controls of airborne transmission or droplet contagion, the nurses union said.
The spokesperson for MarinHealth Medical Center did not respond immediately to calls and an email Friday afternoon.
Castillo said the union had pressed employers to make changes, but they failed to act. The union has staged several protests in the Sacramento region.
“We have learned from tragedies in Italy and Spain that hospitals have become a major vector for the spread of COVID-19,” Castillo said. “That is happening in the U.S. now too. It is long past time for our hospitals to do more, far more, to guarantee they will protect the front-line nurses and other staff who are putting their own lives in grave danger every day.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 6:31 PM.
