National Nurses United

[Defense] Production Act invoked so that we can get this equipment to us. Without this PPE, we won't need the ventilators because none of us will be around to run them." Across the country, NNU members fought back when managers tried to give them only surgical or droplet masks. Nurses recount daily fights on every shift to demand at least N95s. Many nurses knew they needed to take airborne precautions and resorted to bringing in their own N95 respirators from home. Management often responded to these efforts to protect themselves, their coworkers, their patients, and their families and communities with threats of or actual discipline, telling the nurses "they didn't need N95s" and to take off the masks because they would "scare the patients." After NNU pushed back at the facility level and with an online campaign, most facilities allowed nurses to bring their own PPE. But it has always been NNU's position that it is ultimately the employer's responsibility to maintain a safe workplace by providing optimal PPE. In April at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., 10 nurses instantly garnered nationwide attention when they were suspended for refusing to enter COVID patient rooms without being issued N95 respirator masks. When NNU helped the nurses publicize their fight and their coworkers and community turned out in force to support them, the Providence hospital system backed down and said it would begin issuing N95 respirators to nurses caring for COVID-19 and PUI (patients under investigation for COVID) patients. "Our job is not to blindly follow orders. We're taught to question everything, constantly reassess a situation and do what we think is best," said Allison Mayol, one of the suspended RNs, in an inter view with the Santa Monica Daily Press. "I shouldn't be scared or intimi dated into avoiding standing up for the safety of my patients and myself." But just because some hospitals issued N95 respirators did not mean that they still were not cutting corners and bending the rules around proper infection control. To this day, many hospitals are issuing only one N95 to each nurse for each shift, even though this PPE is made to be single use only, even though wearing the same respirator as the nurse moves among COVID-positive and PUI (so potentially negative) patients could be cross-infecting them and contaminating staff common areas, even though constantly donning and doffing N95s increases risk of exposure, and even though such poor infection control practices prior to COVID-19 would have been prohibited and likely resulted in disciplinary action for the nurse. "N95 respirators are single-use masks. They are not meant to be reused and cannot be reused safely," said Arlund in written testimony May 21 to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis of the House Oversight Committee. "In March, we were using the same N95 throughout an entire shift, which is a huge departure from standard protocols, and which is in direct conflict with our training on health and safety as nurses. By April, we were required to begin reusing N95s for multiple shifts in a row. I know of nurses who have been reusing the same N95 for an entire week at a time." Indeed, nurses were directed to store masks for reuse in a myriad of haphazard and unsafe ways, including hanging them on IV poles outside patient rooms, and placing them in brown paper bags or in plastic food containers. "Our hospitals and our government were not prepared," said Mary Turner, an ICU RN at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale, Minn. and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association. "Now they are saying that we have enough PPE yet we have to ration PPE. It is a ridiculous contradiction in terms. If you have enough of 16 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G A P R I L | M AY | J U N E 2 0 2 0 CNA sends letter to CA Dept. of Public Health requesting info on quarantined COVID-19 patient transfers and full accounting of state stockpiles of PPE FEBRUARY 19 First case of community spread in the United States (California) FEBRUARY 26 NNU warns that U.S. hospitals are unpre- pared for COVID-19 after one infected patient at UC Davis Medical Center led to the self-quarantine of at least 36 RNs and 88 other health care workers. FEBRUARY 28 COVID-19 U.S. death in Washington reported as first FEBRUARY 29

• Cover