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Nurses Demand Safety Protections, Relief: “We Aren’t Hospital Propery”

On August 5, members of National Nurses United (NNU) held more than 200 actions inside and outside hospital facilities across the country. They are demanding emergency production of PPE and cash payments, extended unemployment benefits, and daycare subsidies through the end of 2020 to support families in crisis.

“Nurses know that this country’s rampant social, economic, and racial injustice has been killing our patients all along. COVID-19 is just forcing us as a society to face these problems,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN and NNU executive director. “These recent COVID surges and uncontrolled infections and deaths, the failure of employers to protect our nurses and other workers, the outrageously high rates of unemployment and hunger, the totalitarian crackdown on protesters — every crisis we are seeing now can be traced back to our failure to value human lives over profit.”

“Nurses are still at risk,” said Mary C. Turner, an intensive care unit RN and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, whose members are participating in the actions. “We still reuse PPE that was meant to be discarded. We still care for COVID-19 patients and non-COVID patients at the same time. And we still struggle to protect ourselves so we can protect our patients.“

“COVID has exposed everything that has been wrong with our system,” said Zenei Cortez, RN and a president of NNU. “The old way was a huge failure. Now is the time to reenvision a world based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community.”

Source: National Nurses United

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Nurses Union: Epidemics Require End to For-Profit Healthcare

In response to the coronavirus outbreak, National Nurses United, which represents more than 150,000 registered nurses across the country, is demanding better protection for healthcare workers, temporary paid sick leave for all workers, and a ban on monopoly rights for vaccines manufacturers in order to ensure free, universally available vaccines.

In a March 2 letter addressed to the federal government they note that “the for-profit motive in our health delivery system has led to hospital closures in rural and underserved communities, system-wide short-staffing of health care workers and inadequate supplies of medicines, medical equipment (including ventilators), and PPE in health care facilities. As a result, our hospitals and health care facilities are unable to adequately respond quickly to potential COVID-19 infections.”

They note the urgent need for a national health system “in which everyone living in this country is guaranteed the health care they need.”

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13,000 NY Nurses Winning Patient Safety

13,000 nurses employed by the Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and New York Presbyterian hospital systems and represented by the New York State Nurses Association, have been working hard to raise awareness about conditions they and their patients face by understaffing. There are not enough nurses to care for the volume of patients, and the nurses themselves are dangerously overworked during long shifts.

The Nurses Association has been pushing for the passage of the Safe Staffing for Quality Act, which would set staffing requirements in direct care facilities and nursing homes. Hospital administrators and lobbyists–more concerned about profit than care–have fought against the passage of the bill in New York, saying it would increase operating expenses.

Tre Kwon, a nurse at Mount Sinai, said, “It takes a lot of courage to point a finger at the hospital directors about the needs of patients. It really showed the boss how fired up we are and how passionate and fearless nurses are.”