National Nurses United

nursing practice department. I took the educational flyers to all the units so nurses could empower themselves and fight back." And fight back they did. The PPC pushed back to increase the N95s from one to four N95s per shift for the COVID unit. Mean - while, the ER nurses had been using the same N95 respirator for days. "We stopped that practice and made it a minimum of one per shift," said Reding, who has been a nurse for 36 years, including 28 years with Dignity. And the fight continues because N95s are single- use only. Bakersfield Memorial is one of 28 Dignity facilities that CNA/NNOC represents across California and Nevada. The nurses at those hospitals held scores of actions to get Dignity's commitment not to violate their contracts or staffing ratios and to fight for PPE, especially when Dignity wanted to follow the CDC's weakened guidance and forgo airborne precautions. And by enforcing their contract language, the nurses launched their own Pandemic Task Force, with Dignity nurses from Bakersfield, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Las Vegas. Reding spearheaded the effort to ensure that nurses in California and Nevada have a voice. Five nurses, each representing different geographic areas, serve on the task force and meet weekly with Dignity to address issues division-wide. "Having the task force gives us the legal right to talk to corporate," said Reding, who said the group is currently looking at disparities, among other issues. "At Community Hospital of San Bernardino, nurses are reusing N95s for days. That's not acceptable. We want to know how much we have in each facility. Why are we getting four [in Bakersfield] and they are getting one for multiple shifts?" Another important win for the nurses was securing Dignity's commitment not to use decontaminated respirators unless all of the other N95s are exhausted and to get more PPE. "CNA said a decontaminated N95 wasn't safe," noted Reding. "The FDA's emergency use authorization says decontamination should only be used as a last resort if no other respirators are available. 3M said it wasn't safe. It's very nice to have facts and sources that we could use to fight back hospital administration and corporate." Providence-St. Joseph's Health the medical-surgical unit at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., had been converted into a COVID unit by early March. The hospital only gave those nurses surgical masks unless they were doing aerosolizing procedures. "None of us felt safe with just a surgical mask," said Michael Gulick, a med-surg RN working in the COVID unit. "From the get-go the hospital was not following infectious disease protocol." Saint John's claimed they were following the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the CDC's guidance, downgraded on March 10, was irresponsible and dangerous. In addition, the hospital was not following the state's Cal/OSHA aerosol transmissible diseases standard. After an RN in the COVID unit tested positive for COVID, on April 9, Gulick refused to enter a patient's room without an N95 respirator. He knew that nurses in other units had N95s so the issue was not supply. That day, two other nurses in the COVID unit also refused to enter a patient's room without optimal PPE. They were all suspended, pending the results of an investigation. Over the next four days, seven more nurses were suspended for standing up for patient safety and their own safety. A total of 10 nurses were suspended with pay. More than 50 RNs held a socially distanced protest outside the facility to protest the hospital's faulty infection control policies and by April 14, Saint John's nurses declared victory when the hospital announced that health care workers throughout the entire Providence system, not just their facility, would be issued N95 respirators when caring for COVID positive or rule-out patients. But the 10 nurses were still suspended. Three days later, nurses across the CNA/NNU-represented facilities of the Providence-St. Joseph's Health System held actions, with Southern California nurses attending one another's rallies. Nurses at Saint John's continued to protest the suspension of their colleagues; RNs at Little Company of Mary Medical Center-San Pedro protested that more than 11 nurses there tested positive for COVID-19 that week; nurses at Little Company of Mary Medical Center-Torrance rallied for PPE; and in Napa, 400 miles north of Los Angeles at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, nurses demanded that all RNs caring for suspected or confirmed COVID patients get the same optimal PPE. A P R I L | M AY | J U N E 2 0 2 0 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 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 31 MNA nurses testify in state House hearing on hospital safety during pandemic MAY 19 1.3 million COVID cases, 82,000+ deaths in the United States MAY 12 NNU endorses House stimulus HEROES Act MAY 13 Minnesota Nurses Association RNs picket United Hospital and march to state capitol MAY 18 OPPOSITE: St. Rose Dignity San Martin Campus, Las Vegas ABOVE: Suspended RNs at Providence Saint John's Health Center, Santa Monica, Calif.

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