Nurses lives at risk as hospitals prohibit bringing own PPE

Graphic+by+Grace+Dunlavy

Graphic by Grace Dunlavy

When COVID-19 first started to arise in the United States, I had no idea how bad the supply shortages were going to get. To this day, I can’t help but reminisce about standing in breakout sessions, listening to hospital directors assure everyone that we were prepared. Suddenly, weeks later, my concerns were heightened when I got the email stating that nursing students would not be allowed back in the hospitals. The email stated that cancelling clinicals was in the best interest of student health but was primarily due to the growing concern over supply shortages. As devastated as I was, I completely understood the concern of having enough necessary supplies in order to protect all current employees. 

 

Suddenly, a major West Coast hospital chain, Kaiser Permanente, threatened to fire any nursing personnel seen working in their own personal N-95 face masks. N-95 masks are incredibly important because they provide better protection than the regular surgical masks nurses were being given. Kaiser assured their employees that they would have adequate supply, but nurses protested this accusation saying they didn’t feel that the supplies were in fact adequate or even well stocked. Across the country, hospitals are locking up their dwindling supplies and providing nurses with a regulated number of masks in order to better equip themselves for the week. Most nurses are wearing these masks for entire 12-hour shifts or, in some cases, for days at time. Nurses began to fall vulnerable not only to the virus, but to their own hospital organizations, which were not providing them with enough equipment. I was shocked. As a future nurse, I spent time in job interviews asking hospitals how they protected their workers and established a safe working environment. I started to feel like hospitals began to favor their policies and interests rather than the safety and concern of their own employees. 

 

You see many hospital professions going into work each day risking their lives in order to do their jobs. They are faced with the added stressors such as, “what will my kids do if I get sick?” or “what if I bring this home to my loved ones?” Social media gave rise to the outspoken fears of nurses who stated that, while they signed up to heal the sick, they didn’t sign up to do it unprotected. Reports of those feeling guilty for not wanting to work, solely over the concern for their family’s health, began to fill nursing social media pages. Yet, hospitals were still threatening them and, in some cases, firing them over wanting to protect themselves with their own masks. How would a nurse continue to safely work if they didn’t feel supported by the institution that was holding them accountable to be there? I was upset to see hospitals punishing health care workers for trying to take matters into their own hands in order to protect themselves and not addressing their concerns. Not only were nurses being fired for wearing their own masks but for even speaking out about the lack of PPE (personal protective equipment) within their hospitals. Once again, I felt like this was all in the best interest of the hospitals’ images rather than the workers. I can’t imagine the number of legal issues concerning breaking hospital policies, but there is also the threat of families filing legal complaints that their loved ones fell ill due to the lack of protection. Most of these issues are double-edged swords, but as policies change day by day, hospitals need to move quickly in order to address the lack of PPE. 

 

Another major problem affecting this shortage was the public’s rush to buy a bulk supply of PPE equipment, especially N-95 masks. While you can still publicly buy and acquire masks, they are being sold at an inflated rate so that those selling them can make a large profit off the desperate needs of health care workers. As for my family, we had a supply of N-95 masks lying around from when we were painting the interior of our house and sent them to family friends who are nurses. If they weren’t able to get their hands on a new supply of masks from their own hospital, why should they have to turn down a supply from outside resources? It is crazy to see YouTube videos of doctors like Mikhail Varshavski negotiate $50,000 worth of masks with an outside vendor to protect his coworkers because hospitals aren’t able to do so. These are not ordinary times, and if we want to keep our healthcare workers healthy, we need to make changes. 

 

If someone is willing to work day after day in order to combat a highly infectious virus, they should be able to do what they need to feel safe and protected. As the access to supplies begins to dwindle, healthcare workers will begin to be stretched thin. They will get sick and become unable to work. So, if the CDC is willing to come out and recommend that nurses wear scarves and bandanas to protect themselves, then hospitals need to bend their policies to allow nurses to bring their own N-95 masks or homemade masks to ensure their own safety and ease their anxiety. In a time when the world is praising healthcare professionals for continuing to show up and risk their lives, hospitals shouldn’t be the ones shutting them down.