National Nurses United

J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 1 4 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 I f healthcare executives had to touch and care for patients, how much of our resources would be directed to plans for infectious disease and disaster preparation, such as the current Ebola epidemic? But it is RNs and doctors who are the most exposed. In West Africa where Ebola is raging, it is "health workers on the frontline (who) are becoming infected and are dying in shocking numbers," noted Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders. Health workers account for about 10 percent of the deaths so far. The lack of preparation in the United States speaks volumes about the value we place on caring in a country that has no universal healthcare model and societal protection and has made profit the prime directive. Our hospitals are now by and large economic profit centers. Hedge funds are bidding on them. Wall street is taking control of them. Does money value human life? Ask the families of many working people who have died just doing their jobs, like miners who die horrendous deaths from black lung, or firefighters who are expected to save us in fires and earthquakes with inadequate equipment and far too few staff. Are our hospitals and clinics safe? RNs across the country are answering this ques- tion with a resounding NO! The world is already in an outbreak, a pandemic. So where does the arrogance that the United States is somehow immune come from? To begin with, there is no one home in what passes for a healthcare "system" in the United States. The luxury of ignoring disease that is one patient away, or many patients away in a disaster, is the purview of the hospital chains that are working to maxi- mize their profits. So are Ebola and other infectious disease okay to ignore because the United States stands apart from the rest of the world? Hardly. Silence equals death was the legacy of years of neglect of the AIDS pandemic. Apparently the lesson has still not been learned. Ebola's explosive rise in West Africa should be a sobering reminder of that inescapable fact, and a call to action on an international emergency, as well as hold implications for nurses and patients at home. Just as we did after the devastating typhoon in the Philippines, earthquake in Haiti, hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and New York harbor, our Registered Nurse Response Network program of NNU and many of our members see the common threads and have moved to help. We are requesting donations to provide desperately needed protective equipment for nurses, working directly with international agencies, including Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps, and are in contact with nurses and healthcare work- ers organizations in West Africa. "Like it or not we live in an interconnect- ed world," was how Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden aptly put it. Ebola is "not just a problem for West Africa, it's a problem for the world, and the world needs to respond." An "interconnected world" where all of us are drawn together by global economics, political decisions, health and environmen- tal crises, social structures, and culture. An "interconnected world" because factors that have spurred the spread of Ebola, the climate crisis, deforestation, cuts in public health services, poverty, and mal- distribution of wealth affect us all. An "interconnected world" because U.S. hospitals and our fractured healthcare system are not equipped to handle an outbreak of Ebola here, or other pandemics that are sure to come. As of this writing, more than 1,900 people have died in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone alone. Double that number have been infected, and the World Health Organization predicts the number to rise to 20,000 or more as doctors report they can no longer contain the worst record- ed Ebola crisis in history. A crisis so severe, "the world is losing the battle to contain it," said Dr. Liu. "Rather than building new Ebola care centers in Liberia, we are forced to build crematoria." Healthcare workers have paid an espe- cially heavy price. At least 120 have died, and twice that many infected. The WHO calls the infection rate among caregivers "unprecedented." A major cause of the high infection rate for nurses and other health workers is the critical shortage of protective gear, espe- cially hazmat-style suits. Even in dedicated Ebola wards, protective gear is often scarce or non-existent. Much of the protective gear they use must be destroyed after use, so Ebola wards need a constant flow of clean equipment. One nurse at a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, said she and her colleagues have resorted to cutting up their old uniforms and tying them over their faces to protect themselves, looking out through holes in the fabric. To protest the lack of protective equip- ment and poor pay while risking their lives, nurses and other health workers have gone on strike in Liberia, where 77 have already died, and Sierra Leone. Ready for disasters in the United States? Hardly not. RoseAnn DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses United In It Together Everybody knows Ebola is a global health emergency, except the for-profit U.S. healthcare industry (Continued on page 27) Is your workplace prepared for a disease pandemic? Take the survey: www.surveymonkey.com/s/CNANNUEbola Please donate to help buy protective gear for Ebola healthcare workers! www.nationalnursesunited.org/pages/rnrn-disaster-relief-fund

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