Saturday, April 11, 2020

Health Nurses say hospital risks infecting patients with coronavirus - The Washington Post

Health




Heroic effort to treat patients despite rationing of protective gowns, masks and tests





Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.]

has ballooned in recent years to $8 million, including stock awards and incentives, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.


After being contacted by The Post for comment on this story, the company filed a document to the SEC stating that Smith was voluntarily taking a 25 percent cut to his base salary, which was $1.6 million last year, and that other executives were taking a 10 percent cut. The company said in a statement that the pay cuts would help pay for a $3 million fund for employees “suffering hardships.”


coronavirus or that we don’t have enough equipment at the hospital, they’re pulling you into the office,” says Dan Coviello, who works as a surgical tech at a sister CHS hospital in Scranton and is the president of the SEIU PA chapter that represents nurses at that hospital.


Brown, the chief executive, says the company urges employees to speak up about safety concerns and says that they can make anonymous complaints about retaliation to a hotline.


“Our organization does not support or condone retaliation and will address it immediately if such behavior is found to have occurred,” he said.


But Coviello says that employees at the two CHS hospitals in Scranton who have raised concerns about unprotected contact with specific covid-19 patients have been threatened with termination for violating health privacy laws. When he has gone to management with safety complaints from members at his hospital, he says the first question is “What’s the person’s name?” which he says reflects their primary interest in rooting out complainers.


Timothy Landers, a professor of nursing at Ohio State University, says that this kind of pressure on nurses, especially during a health-care crisis, can harm patients.


“If you have nurses who are kind of overworked, overstressed, feeling underappreciated, put upon, not respected or protected by management, then you see all kinds of bad things happen with patient care,” he said.


Galin, the CHS spokeswoman, said in a statement that the company is working around-the-clock to resupply its hospitals with protective equipment.


First and foremost, we recognize that protecting our caregivers is critically important, and we are doing everything possible to create the safest work environments possible,” she said in an email.


Nevertheless, the union and nurses say those who speak out about problems have been hauled in for disciplinary meetings, had their shift hours cut, or had their schedules changed.


“In the last week, we have members being pulled in to managers’ offices and they’re giving them coaching because they’re speaking out and they want them to be quiet,” Coviello said of his hospital, Regional Hospital of Scranton. “And some got written discipline. And in those disciplines, which I’ve been in, they said that if they continue to speak out, there will be further discipline up to being fired from the hospital.”


found that medical staff is facing high levels of anxiety. It pointed to one hospital where a staff member who tested positive for covid-19 exposed other employees. It said the hospital did not have enough test kits to screen them. It also found that many hospitals were setting aside best practices for personal protection equipment because of shortages.


“This place actually makes you second-guess your career choice,” one nurse lamented. “As much as I love my job, it’s like, is it even worth it being a nurse and putting these patients at risk? I mean, that’s the biggest concern, you know, at the end of the day, did I give my best care possible? And this place prevents you from doing that.”


Union officials and hospital staff finally met with hospital administrators last Friday, after weeks of complaints about safety. But staff say they got little information. When they asked how many masks the hospital had and how it was distributing them, they were told that the hospital had adequate supplies and would follow guidelines from the CDC.


When they asked for clarity on what employees should do if they came down with covid-19 symptoms, they were told that they were relying on staff to consult their own physicians and to “self-screen.” The hospital would not test staff.


“Self-screening for covid?” one union official asked, incredulous. “Are you kidding me?”


On Wednesday, the hospital began screening the staff.


Health
A sign at a carwash in Scranton reads “Be smart, be safe, things will get better.” (Elizabeth Herman/For The Washington Post)




Read More from Source



Health Nurses say hospital risks infecting patients with coronavirus - The Washington Post
Previous Post
Next Post

About Author

0 Comments: