National Nurses United

Not once, twice. Cynthia Butler has been on the Covid-19 front lines for so long that the Florida RN has contracted the virus twice: once in May and again in July. "I can't believe this," said Butler, who usually works at HCA's Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte, Fla. The entire state is a hot spot for Covid and its governor, Ron DeSantis, in late Sep- tember lifted all restrictions on the economy, declaring that the state would not close anything going forward. The second time she was exposed to Covid, Butler said the hospital never notified her. She had encountered so much resistance from her hospital to testing her that, when she suspected herself in July of getting Covid, again, she went straight to a county testing facility. She said there was no test- ing policy to return to work; she simply had to be asymptomatic for 24 hours. When she finally recovered and showed up for work on Aug. 14, managers hassled her for asking for an N95, because under current policy, only nurses doing aerosolizing procedures get them. Rather than risk it, Butler decided to take a leave. Sadly, Butler's experience is typical of what nurses across the country have experienced and continue to fight against every day and every shift in this long, protracted, nearly year-long struggle to con- trol Covid-19 in the United States. Employers deny nurses optimal personal protective equipment (PPE) and fail to follow proper infec- tion control which should include proper isolation of patients, testing of both workers and patients, contact tracing and notification, and science-based, not money-based, policies for allowing employees to safely quarantine and return to work. Our elected officials and gov- ernment agencies at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels have failed to show leadership by not following the precautionary principle and enforcing strong workplace and public health guide- lines. Instead, they have caved to business and political pressure to prematurely lift stay-at-home orders and "reopen the economy" and schools—often without requiring face covering and social distancing rules that we know help limit the spread of the virus. As a result, the United States has shown the absolute worst per- formance on combating Covid-19 in the world, despite being one of the richest and most well-resourced countries. As of this article's writing, we have recorded more than 220,000 deaths and 8.75 mil- lion infections, making up about one-fifth, or 20 percent, of all deaths and cases despite representing only 4.23 percent of the world population. By National Nurses United's count, which we openly agree is certainly an undercount, more than 230 registered nurses in the United States have died, with 12 being NNU members. A shock- ingly high percentage of those deaths are Filipino, Black, and other nurses of color. The immense suffering, sorrow, trauma, and death that could have been prevented is unfathomable. Throughout the summer and fall, NNU nurse members across the country fought Covid on multiple fronts: against the disease pro- cess itself and caring for their patients to the best of their abilities without infecting themselves or their family members; and then also against money-driven employers that refused to provide safe work- places; against government health and safety agencies that refused to issue science-based public health and worker safety guidelines; against elected officials who cared more about political grandstand- ing and corporate pressures to "reopen" the economy by prematurely lifting shelter-in-place and social distancing and masking restric- tions than they did about saving human lives; against a racist society that disproportionately hurts and kills more of their Black, Brown, Indigenous and patients of color; and, at times, against societal atti- tudes that prioritized individual needs and desires over the good of the country. In late September, for example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted all Covid restrictions in the state and actually for- bade local governments from imposing their own. Nurses point out that if the United States had practiced the infec- tion control measures we needed to on the front end, we wouldn't have let the virus spread out of control and prolonged the pandemic for as long as we have with no real end in sight. Nurses show up for work each shift out of duty to their patients, their community, and their profession, but nurses are also, rightfully, bone tired, feeling completely disrespected, and fed up. For many NNU members, fighting collectively through the union for their own and their patients' safety is what keeps them going. The day after we spoke with Butler, she was scheduled to attend a meeting with manage- ment to address a class-action grievance over PPE that the nurses had filed against her hospital, which is owned by HCA, the nation's largest and wealthiest hospital chain. "They act like I'm robbing the company blind just because I asked for an N95," said Butler. "This is my life! I'm over 60. I want an N95 to work." T he nurses assembled across the screen represented two of the nation's current Covid-19 hotspot states, Arizona and Nevada. One after another, they shared stories during a Sept. 14 virtual roundtable with Dr. Jill Biden, Vice President Joe Biden's spouse, about the problems they encounter each time they report to work. It was a litany of terrible infection control practices: their hos- pital employers failing to provide optimal PPE and instead locking up and rationing PPE or forcing nurses to use unproven and unsafe "decontaminated" respirator masks; failing to test all patients and cohort and isolate Covid-positive patients; delaying or denying test- ing of nurses; failing to contact trace and promptly notify nurses of exposure; failing to safely staff units; failing to allow nurses to prop- erly quarantine with pay when exposed but instead pushing them back to work; and the list goes on. One of the Arizona nurses, Dom- inique Hamilton, had contracted Covid-19 in March and taken several months to recover from it, which included two trips to the emergency room and a pulmonology specialist. J U LY | A U G U S T | S E P T E M B E R 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 13

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