Nurses: Front-Line Soldiers in a Pandemic
We Need Your Advice | Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius prepares to address Nurses Congress this spring.
Photo Credit: Gonzalo Baeza
AFSCME’s Nurses Congress convenes as unions disclose that America’s health care providers are not protected from virus outbreaks.
By Clyde Weiss
The H1N1 virus has moved off the front page. But it’s still spreading around the world, and health care workers — who are always on the front lines playing a vital role in the war against disease — are especially vulnerable.
Shortly before some 300 registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) arrived for the 12th annual National Nurses Congress — hosted this spring by AFSCME-United Nurses of America (UNA) — AFSCME and several other AFL-CIO unions released a sobering report on pandemic flu preparations.
Its shocking conclusion: these critical health care workers “face a very high risk of becoming infected when caring for patients with pandemic flu unless adequate health and safety measures are in place in advance” of an outbreak.
Unprepared
The dismaying report reveals that many of the more than 100 health care facilities surveyed nationwide are not adequately prepared to protect workers’ health and safety during a pandemic.
Astonishingly, fewer than half the facilities (43 percent) even trained their workers to deal with a pandemic. Moreover, the report said there are no existing comprehensive federal standards on airborne diseases by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Health care workers are at risk — unnecessarily.
“I have a lot of concerns based on this report,” says Carolyn Knapper, LPN, a member of National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (NUHHCE)/AFSCME Local 1199C. Knapper, who works in a Philadelphia-based nursing home called Centennial Village, adds, “Nurses are expected to help sick or dying patients in a pandemic. But how can we do our jobs properly if we get sick, too? As nurses, we are expected not to get sick. We deal with patients with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and now the H1N1 flu.”
Miguel García, an RN and member of United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP/NUHHCE/AFSCME), delivered a similar warning to members of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor during the week of the Nurses Congress. García, who works at the Emergency Department at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, testified that front-line medical workers must have comprehensive, mandatory federal standards to protect them during an influenza pandemic.
Need To Do Better
“Clearly, those at highest risk and in need of the most protection are front-line health care workers,” said Jordan Barab, acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, who led AFSCME’s safety and health program from 1982 to 1998.
“If our society expects our brave health care workforce to come to work each day during a pandemic, then our nation has a responsibility to ensure that you have the best personal protective equipment and the latest safety and health information,” he told the AFSCME nurses.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, also acknowledged the critical role nurses will play should a pandemic occur. “You know better than anyone where our system works and where it does not,” she declared. “We need to hear your input and advice, your strategies and your voices.”
