Nurses to hold national day of action Jan. 13 to demand employers, Biden administration protect RNs, health care workers

CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION

At the frontline of the pandemic, nurses assert working conditions are unsafe.

Filipino American nurse leaders are calling for safer working conditions as the coronavirus continues to rage across the U.S.

“As we enter year three of the deadliest pandemic in our lifetimes, nurses are enraged to see that, for our government and our employers, it’s all about what’s good for business, not what’s good for public health,” said Filipino American registered nurse Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, who is president of the National Nurses United, the largest union of RNs. 

“Our employers claim there is a ‘nursing shortage,’ and that’s why they must flout optimal isolation times, but we know there are plenty of registered nurses in this country," says Cortez. 

"There is only a shortage of nurses willing to work in the unsafe conditions created by hospital employers and this government’s refusal to impose lifesaving standards. So this is a vicious cycle where weakening protections just drives more nurses away from their jobs.”

Planned actions include 6 p.m. ET candlelight vigil at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. and1 p.m. ET virtual press conference, featuring stories from frontline registered nurses across the country

Registered nurse members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union of RNs, will hold actions across the country on Thursday, Jan. 13—including a candlelight vigil in Washington, D.C. for nurses who lost their lives to Covid-19, and a national virtual press conference—to demand the hospital industry invest in safe staffing, and to demand that President Biden follow through on his campaign promise to protect nurses and prioritize public health.

After almost two years of the pandemic burnout among the health care workforce is making the nursing shortage even worse. About half of medical workers reported feeling burnout during 2020, according to a study from the American Medical Association. Almost half of ICU nurses said in another survey earlier this year that they were considering leaving the profession.

“The workforce is burnt out. The workforce is leaving,” said Beth Feldpush, senior vice president at America’s Essential Hospitals.

For nurses still providing critical care, the poor protections make working conditions more hazardous.  Nurses assert that in recent weeks, the Biden administration has ripped away critical protections from health care workers and the public, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) weakening COVID isolation guidelines and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announcing that it intends to withdraw critical COVID protections for health care workers—right when the Omicron variant is exploding across the country and hospitalizations are skyrocketing. 

Nurses emphasize that being left unprotected by the government and by their profit-driven hospital employers which have failed to invest in safe staffing and provide critical health and safety protections, has created such unsafe working conditions that nurses are being driven away from the profession.

NNU conducted a survey of thousands of registered nurses across the country from October to December, 2021. Of the nurses who responded, 83% said at least half of their shifts were unsafely staffed, and 68% said they have considered leaving their position. RNs say nurses would stop leaving the profession if hospitals immediately improved working conditions by increasing staffing levels and followed nurses’ advice to grow the pool of available nurses. 

According to the survey of nurses, hospitals must actively hire permanent staff nurses and consider a wider range of educational qualifications; stop canceling nurses; properly cross-train current staff nurses so that they are competent to work in other departments, especially critical care, and institute optimal occupational health and safety protocols to protect nurses, other health care workers, and patients.

An earlier survey by the NNU found that almost a third of the nurses who have died from COVID-19 are Filipino or Filipino American.

Nurses also call on the CDC to strengthen isolation guidelines for health care workers and the public, and on OSHA to institute a permanent COVID-19 health care standard without delay. 

On Jan. 5, NNU joined leading labor organizations and unions representing the country’s nurses and health care workers to petition the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order OSHA to issue a permanent standard and to retain the emergency temporary standard until the permanent standard goes into effect. Without the protections of a permanent standard, RNs emphasize that the health and well-being of nurses, other health care workers, patients, and the general public is in grave danger.

“Everyone will need medical care at some point in their lives, and when our loved ones are in the hospital, we want nurses to be able to deliver the focused care that all patients deserve,” says NNU executive director Bonnie Castillo, a Filipino American RN. 

“The working conditions that our employers and the federal government are telling nurses and health care workers to endure are both grossly unfair and unsustainable, and we are standing up on Jan. 13 to say, ‘Enough!’  says Castillo, who was named one of the nation's Most Influential People by Time magazine for 2020.

"We need permanent protections based on science, and we need them now because when nurses and health care workers aren’t safe, we cannot keep our patients safe.”

Click here to see a list of NNU local Jan. 13 actions across the United States.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.