We are heartbroken to have lost our first National Nurses United RN members to COVID-19
Frontline nurses fighting COVID19 continue to care for patients without protections. They are exposed, sidelined in quarantine, and sick. And now, nurses are dying.
Last week, National Nurses United (NNU) lost our first registered nurses to COVID19. We honor them, and sadly, we know that they won’t be the last.
Our lost members have joined scores of nurses and health care workers forced to take critical risks without adequate protection during this crisis, a crisis fueled by corporate greed and government malfeasance.
We know that nurses should have a powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR), the highest level of protection. But employers are not even providing the N95 respirator, which is the minimum protection required to face a novel virus like COVID-19.
NNU has, for weeks, been demanding President Trump immediately order manufacturers to increase production of N95 respirators and PAPRs under the Defense Production Act, a law that allows the president to redirect production efforts toward making essential goods during a national emergency. While the President has begun to invoke this authority to increase manufacturing of ventilators, he has not yet ordered increased production of PPE, including respirators.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the country will need 3.5 billion N95s to get through this pandemic safely. If our country fails to immediately protect our health care workers, we will fail to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
Currently, many hospital administrators are placing N95 respirators under lock and key. They tell nurses to wear loose-fitting surgical masks instead of respirators, claiming that surgical masks are safe. They hope that nurses, trained professionals with science degrees, will believe these lies.
In this climate, nurses know that an N95 respirator “mask” is their only hope. In desperation, many nurses are bringing their own N95 respirators from home. In some cases, hospital administration has told them they can’t use them, despite the lack of available protective equipment. Administrators have admonished, threatened, and disciplined nurses who’ve tried to protect themselves.
Only NNU nurse activism has forced hospitals to relent. RNs, practicing social distancing on their protest lines, are holding their heads high, refusing to give in to corporate lies.
Nurses are now months into the global spread of COVID-19, abandoned by both the government and hospital corporations, while cases skyrocket in the United States and deaths recently surpassed 1000 in one day.
As we head into the surge, let’s be clear: Hospital employers and the U.S. government who’ve left nurses and health care workers with nothing but a bandana for protection, are culpable for these deaths.
President Trump has invoked the DPA to direct GE to make ventilators, and he should also do so to order immediate production of N95 respirators, the most basic shield nurses need in this struggle.
But the American Hospital Association and the president’s contempt for nurses is clear. President Trump recently suggested that nurses were stealing N95 respirator masks, blaming health care workers for the shortages.
As one of our members told us, “I just feel like fodder in their war.”
We know this shortage was caused by lack of preparation, unwillingness to pay for protective equipment, and willful ignorance in the interest of profit. Since H1N1, since Ebola, we’ve warned the government and the health care industry that this was coming. But they refused to listen.
We are heartbroken by these deaths. But we are also angry. And despite these heartbreaks, we recognize our collective power. We stand united to demand the protections nurses and all health care workers deserve, to honor nurses who have died, and to honor and protect nurses who are risking their lives on the front lines, every day.
