National Nurses United

had a clear and consistent message: Nurses, doctors, and other health- care workers deserve optimal safety standards and real, hands-on training to save lives and prevent any spread of this terrible, deadly dis- ease. Furthermore, the international community needs to ultimately step up money, resources, and staff to help the West African countries at ground zero of this outbreak if we want to stop Ebola for good. Though NNU has been hugely successful in pushing the CDC to recommend stricter standards for personal protective equipment and training, and in alerting the government and public alike about just how poorly prepared the nation's hospitals are for handling Ebola and similar diseases, its work is not done. As of press time, the federal and state governments have stopped short of mandating that hospitals must provide healthcare workers with hazardous-material suits and powered air-purifying respirators at every stage of treat- ment for potential Ebola patients. As a result of government and industry inaction, NNU is plan- ning to stage a national Day of Action on Ebola on Nov. 12, expected to include thousands of nurses at facilities in at least 12 states and Washington, D.C. Nurses will be striking, picketing, and protesting their employers' failure to protect their health and safety and that of their patients and communities. Through a petition signed by some 60,000 people, NNU has already called on President Obama to use his executive powers and on Congress to use its Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement influ- ence to force hospitals to comply with providing the best level of equipment and training. Hospitals in the United States, though some systems net billions of dollars each year, have been reluctant to buy the type of equipment that nurses know they need to safely take care of Ebola patients. While a handful of hospitals are stepping up and stocking the equipment that the CDC and NNU is recommend- ing, the vast majority are still supplying their units with woefully inadequate personal protective equipment: papery yellow gowns that are not even water impermeable; plastic face shields that fail to cover skin near the mouth, nose, eyes, and ears; and cheap masks instead of powered air-purifying respirators. On top of that, hospi- tals are resorting to computer-based presentations and slides to train nurses about how to don and doff the equipment, instead of providing hands-on training, drilling, and practice with the whole team of providers. "It's really pretty sexist, I think," said Deborah Burger, RN and a member of the NNU Council of Presidents, referring to manage- ments' attitude toward the predominantly female nursing profes- sion. "They're saying that equipment is fine for you. You don't need any better. We know better than you what's best for you." Over the past month, registered nurses across the country have already been protesting the lack of preparation at their hospitals, at the statehouse, at the federal level, and through the media. As early as August, NNU had started surveying RN members about their workplaces' readiness for Ebola, asking basic questions such as whether their employers had communicated protocols and policies about how to handle potential Ebola patients, whether they were stocking adequate personal protective equipment such as fluid impermeable gowns and goggles or face shields, and whether their hospitals had a disposal plan in place. Eventually, more than 3,000 RNs from 1,020 facilities in all 50 states responded, and roughly 85 percent said that their hospitals were not prepared at all, and had been largely silent about anything to do with Ebola. In September, California Nurses Association and National Nurs- es Organizing Committee nurses at their convention staged a "die- in" to protest the country's lack of preparedness for Ebola—putting nurses' and the public's lives at risk. Just days later, news broke about Thomas Eric Duncan, the man visiting from Liberia whom, on his first visit to the emergency room, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas failed to diagnose as hav- ing Ebola. A gravely ill Duncan subsequently returned and was admitted as the United State's first confirmed case of Ebola. Suddenly, Ebola being a reality in the United States made everyone sit up and take the nurses' warnings more seriously. But when news broke on Oct. 12 that one of the registered nurses treating Duncan, Nina Pham, had contracted Ebola and that the CDC was insinuating it was her fault for "breaking protocol," RNs shifted into high gear. Nurses immediately called a press conference to discuss how their requests for equipment, education, training, and adequate staffing have been met with deaf ears by their employers. Holding up signs that read, "I am Nina Pham," they hit home the results of their survey and pushed back against the idea that nurses were to blame. "Our hospitals throughout the country have not given us pro- tocols and training that allows us to ask questions, and then when the nurses become infected, they are blamed for not following the protocols," said Katy Roemer, a Kaiser Permanente RN and member S E P T E M B E R | O C T O B E R 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

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