Senate to hear from Filipino American nurse leader supporting Medicare for All

NNU PHOTO

Bonnie Castillo leads National Nurses United, the largest RN union in the U.S.

National Nurses United (NNU) Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN, will join other leaders to testify at a Senate Budget Committee hearing today, May 12, to tell Congress why nurses, based on their frontline role in health care, support Medicare for All.

Castillo, a Filipino American registered nurse based in the San Francisco Bay Area, will join a panel at the 11 a.m. hearing chaired by Medicare for All champion Senator Bernie Sanders. D-VT, to be held on International Nurses Day, the final day of National Nurses Week 2022.

“As the largest union of registered nurses in the country, we at NNU are very familiar with the fact that no real change is ever won without collective action,” Castillo said ahead of today's hearing.

“Just as we have to fight together inside our workplaces for protections for our patients and for ourselves, we have to struggle in our communities and in the halls of Congress. In fact, we view it as an extension of our work to take care of our patients at the bedside.”

For decades, NNU members have seen firsthand how money-driven health care systems worsen medical outcomes for patients and working conditions for nurses and other health care professionals. This historic trend of mismanagement has been exacerbated by the global pandemic, and Covid-19 has only heightened the obvious necessity of moving to a Medicare for All model.

“We are seeing unprecedented momentum for Medicare for All not just among nurses, but as part of a growing movement demanding health justice,” Castillo said. “It is past time for the United States government to listen to nurses and listen to the people as we demand: Pass Medicare for All and guarantee health care as a human right.”

Foreign-born workers make up about a sixth of the U.S. nursing workforce, and the need is increasing, nursing associations and staffing agencies report, as nurses increasingly leave the profession.

Nurses from the Philippines and Filipino American nurses make up a large part of the health care system in the United States.  In 2019, one of 20 registered nurses in the United States was trained in the Philippines, according to TiME magazine.

With nurses leaving the profession, U.S. hospitals are again looking to recruiting nurses from the Philippines to fill the shortage of nursing professionals.

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

Nurses hail SCOTUS ruling for mandated vaccines for health workers, but decry Justices decision denying mandate for other workers

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Candles were used to represent the nurses who have died from COVID-19.

On the same day that nurses across the U.S. were rallying for safer working conditions, the U.S. Supreme Court was approving President Biden's mandate for all workers in health care facilities be vaccinated. 

The largest union of registered nurses, the National Nurses United, Thursday welcomed the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Biden administration’s authority to issue a vaccine mandate for all workers in health care facilities. At the same time, the nurses were disappointed that the Court overruled similar federal safety measures for all employees.

“At a time when we’re closing in on 850,000 Americans having died in the worst global pandemic in a century, and when infections and hospitalizations are continuing to soar, it is the obligation of our public agencies to require and enforce essential public safety measures to protect the lives and health of all American workers,” said Filipino American RN Zenei Triunfo-Coretez, NNU President .

Nurses at Dignity Health in Santa Clara County, CA took park in a rally Thursday.

“From the onset of the pandemic in the U.S. two years ago, nurses have demanded that federal and state officials direct health care employers in particular to implement a variety of infectious disease control protocols – especially as we have seen employers routinely ignore basic protections,” said Triunfo-Cortez.

“The result has been the deaths of more than 4,700 health care workers, including close to 500 RNs, and hospitals turned into sites of potential infection instead of healing, with patients being infected with Covid-19 after arriving in hospitals for other emergency care.”

“For that reason, we are gratified with today’s 5-4 court decision that, frankly, should have been unanimous, to support one important safety measure — vaccination for health care workers — which must be part of the total program of infectious disease containment measures NNU has long outlined,” she continued.

The court order, said Triunfo-Cortez, “should be a signal to the Department of Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Administration to take the next necessary step — extending the Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) issued last June until adopting a permanent standard based on it for health care workplaces.”

Earlier this month, NNU, along with the AFL-CIO and four other unions representing nurses, petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for a permanent standard “aimed at protecting the life and health of millions of nurses and other frontline health care workers throughout the United States in grave danger from the deadly Covid-19 pandemic” and for retention of the ETS.

On Thursday, a national day of action organized by the NNU involved hundreds of RNs at dozens of hospitals staged informational picket lines, including a candlelight vigil held at Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House.

NNU nurses emphasized 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-19 isolation guidelines and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announcing that it intends to withdraw critical COVID-19protections for health care workers — right when the Omicron variant is exploding across the country and hospitalizations are skyrocketing.

“OSHA is charged with ensuring that employers create and maintain safe workplaces, and this delay in issuing a permanent standard puts the lives of nurses and other health care workers, patients, and our communities, in jeopardy," said Bonnie Castillo, RN, NNU executive director. 

"We have seen far too many of our fellow nurses die during this pandemic. As of today, we have recorded the deaths of 476 nurse deaths from Covid," said the Filipino American nurse. 

"Going to work should not mean putting your life and the lives of your loved ones in danger. It is time for OSHA to issue a permanent standard and protect nurses and health care workers who are on the front lines working to save the lives of others.” — 

At the same time, with today’s SCOTUS ruling, NNU condemned the argument of the 6-3 majority throwing out the vaccine mandate for other workplaces, especially the majority’s argument that the rampant spread of the infection in unsafe workplaces is not an “occupational hazard in most.”

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Nurses in Maine took part in the NNU Day of Action.

“That twisted logic ignores the disproportionate number of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths among tens of thousands of essential workers over the past two years, from infections that have been contracted on the job,” said Triunfo-Cortez. “And the pandemic is far from over, with the latest deadly surge still overwhelming hospitals.”

Over the past two weeks alone, according to a New York Times tracker, infections were up by 159 percent with 781,000 daily new cases on average, and over 1,800 people are still dying every day, a 51 percent increase over the two-week average.

An earlier study found that about a third of health care workers who died from COVID-19 were of Filipino descent, many of them initially recruited from Philippines.

“If the agencies created to protect worker safety are barred from doing so, we have no laws and no safety regulations in the nation at all,” Triunfo-Cortez added. “In the midst of this still-raging pandemic,” she concluded, “nurses fully agree with the words of AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler today, we will not beat this pandemic until we stop the spread of the pandemic at work.”

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

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Nurses in Contra Costa County, California showed their support for a safer work environment.

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.

Ceremony planned to remember and honor RNs felled by COVID-19

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Bonnie Castillo, (in black) leads the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S.

The 400 registered nurses who have died in the United States from the COVID-19 pandemic will be honored on a National Day of Remembrance, Wednesday, May 12, in the nation's capitol.

The names of each of the fallen health care workers will be projected on the AFL-CIO building, which sits across from the White House. The National Nurses United (NNU) is urging the Biden administration to immediately issue an Occupational Safety and Health Administration emergency temporary standard on infectious diseases to require employers to protect employees at work. 

The event will mark International Nurses Day, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth, and a time to mark the contributions nurses make to society across the globe.

• What: Honoring U.S. nurses who have died due to Covid-19
• When: Wednesday, May 12 from 9 p.m.-10 p.m. ET
• Where: Projected on the AFL-CIO headquarters building, 815 Black Lives Matter Plaza NW, Washington, DC 20005

The NNU continues to advocate for safe staffing levels, optimal personal protective equipment (PPE), the OSHA standard, and other measures aimed at protecting patients and health care workers across the nation.

“We stand united to honor our fallen nurses who were on the front line of this pandemic,” said NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, a Filiipino American registered nurse. 

“These are more than just names projected on a building. These are our colleagues and friends, the hardworking nurses who spent each and every day protecting and caring for patients, even during a deadly pandemic," said the Filipino American leader of the U.S.'s largest nurses union. "They made the ultimate sacrifice, and we promise to never forget them, but honor them as we continue fighting to protect the living.”

According to data collected by NNU, more than a quarter of nurses who have died of COVID-19 and related complications in the U.S. are Filipino American, even though Filipinos make up only 4%, or about 150,000, registered nurses in the country.

In California where Filipinos comprise 20% of the RNs, NNU reports that 23 of the 38 known registered nurse deaths in California (as of February 11), or 3 out of 5 coronavirus deaths are of Filipino descent.

"It's very unfair because as nurses, we signed up to take care of patients, but none of us signed up to die," said registered nurse Zenei Cortez, another Filipino American leader of the NNU, to ABC News.

“The nurses have paid the ultimate price for the failure of our hospital employers and our government to protect them during this pandemic,” adds Castillo.

Nurses support Biden's plan for COVID-19 and economic relief

NATIONAL NURSES UNITED

Bonnie Castillo, front right, heads up the country's largest union for RNs.

President Joe Biden's plan for relief from and safety measures against Covid-19 unveiled on Day 2 of his presidency received the support of the country's largest union of registered nurses. 

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National Nurses United applauded and enthusiastically welcomed Biden’s new National Strategy for the Covid-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness, released on January 21; the executive orders and actions related to Covid-19 that the president signed on his first three days in office; and his stimulus plan, the American Rescue Plan, released on January 14.

“For a full year, the nation’s nurses have been calling on federal elected officials to take comprehensive action to combat Covid-19," said Bonnie Castillo, RN, executive director of National Nurses United, during a virtual press conference Friday. 

"In his first days in office, President Biden has shown us that he is listening to the concerns and the expertise of nurses by taking immediate action on the worker health and safety protections and broader public health protections that we have been demanding.” 

The Biden's plan contains “the comprehensive plan that our country has been sorely missing in the response to this pandemic,” says Castillo, a Filipino American. "Nurses say they look forward to working with the president and his administration on the details of implementation and enforcement of this plan, and they strongly urge the administration to begin implementation promptly.

“We are particularly pleased that the president signed strong executive orders to protect worker health and safety and to improve the medical supply chain. In signing these orders, the president has begun the process of issuing an Occupational Safety and Health emergency temporary standard to protect workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and has directed his administration to ensure the increased production and distribution of critical medical supplies, including PPE,” said Castillo.

The union also applauded the American Rescue Plan, proposed by President Biden, which contains many economic relief measures for which NNU has been advocating.

“The stimulus package proposed by the president would provide immediate economic relief and supports for millions of people across the country,” said Castillo. “Nurses know that this economic relief is necessary to help people stay home and stay safe during this pandemic, and to ensure the housing and food security that is essential to the health and wellbeing of our patients. We call on Congress to pass the American Rescue Plan immediately.”

NATIONAL NURESS UNITED

Nurses have been advocated for many of the safety measures in President Biden's plan.

In addition to the game-changing executive orders on worker health and safety and the medical supply chain, NNU pointed to critical and necessary measures in additional executive orders and actions signed by the president in the past few days and reflected in the Covid-19 response plan. These include commitments to:

• Update CDC guidance based on science. Throughout the pandemic, said nurses, the Trump administration’s CDC put nurses, patients and the public in danger by publishing dangerous guidance that was not based on scientific evidence.

• Provide paid sick and family leave and extend this leave to more workers, including the removal of the health care worker exemption. Nurses and other health care workers have not been eligible for the paid sick and family leave that Congress passed last spring, but they are direly in need of access to this leave.

• Increase federal support to increase health care capacity and respond to surge situations. The stimulus proposal includes $350 billion for state, local, and territorial governments, and an additional $20 billion for tribal governments. The president signed a memorandum to increase the use of the National Guard to provide pandemic support and relief, and increased the reimbursements for these services to ensure that FEMA covers 100 percent of these costs, while the executive order on “Improving and Expanding Access to Care and Treatments for Covid-19” directs federal agencies to provide targeted surge assistance to critical care and long term care facilities.

• Establish a national Covid-19 testing strategy.\

• Enhance data collection and ensure the transparent gathering, sharing and publication of Covid-19 related data. Throughout the pandemic, federal and state governments have neglected, hidden and manipulated Covid-19 data. Detailed consistent data is necessary to understand how and where the virus is spreading and how to best control it.

• Prioritize health equity in all aspects of the pandemic response, including through the creation of the Covid-19 Health Equity Taskforce.

• Develop a comprehensive and efficient strategy for vaccinations.

• Reengage with international partners and the World Health Organization on global health priorities both relating specifically to the Covid-19 pandemic and to other global health concerns.

“Nurses have been on the front lines of this pandemic since it began,” said Castillo. “For nearly a year, we have been exhausted both physically and emotionally, and consistently and unnecessarily put at risk at work. Hundreds of nurses have died due to lack of protections at work. 

According to an earlier NNU report, almost a third of the RNs who have died from Covid-19 in the U.S. were Filipino Americans.

"The actions that President Biden has taken in the past three days have given us relief and hope after a traumatic year," Castillo concluded in her statement. "We’re ready to get to work to make this Covid-19 response plan a reality,"

FilAm History Month: Nurses carry on the tradition of Filipino American activism

A portion of a gallery of those Filipino health workers of those who have perished due to the coronavirus.
Almost every day, Kanlungan adds another one to its gallery.

 

As we move into October -- Filipino American History Month, with its theme of social activism, a hallmark of Filipino American history -- we must note that today's generation of activists include Filipino and Filipino American nurses in the front lines of battling the deadly coronavirus.

Time magazine named one of the Filipino American registered nurses and a labor activist to the magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. 

"When I recently learned that TIME had added me to the 2020 TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world, I knew that our nurse voice of patient advocacy was louder and more resonant than ever," said Bonnie Castillo, president of the National Nurses Union, the largest labor group representing RNs in the country as she wrote in Medium.

Nurses of Filipino descent make up just 4% of the U.S. healthcare workforce, but nearly a third of registered nurse deaths due to COVID-19, according to a new report from the National Nurses United union.

On Tuesday, Sept. 29, National Nurses United (NNU) released a report, Sins of Omission: How Government Failures to Track Covid-19 Data Have Led to More Than 1,700 Health Care Worker Deaths and Jeopardize Public Health and a statement on Covid-19 data transparency. 

The report and statement condemns the failure of federal and state governments to track and publicly report transparent, accurate, and timely data on the Covid-19 pandemic. The continued lack of detailed, consistent data endangers the health and lives of nurses, other health care workers, and their patients.

“We cannot forget the deaths of so many health care workers, which includes 213 nurses,” said Zenei Cortez, RN, a president of NNU.

“These deaths were avoidable and unnecessary due to government and employer willful inaction. Nurses and health care workers were forced to work without personal protective equipment they needed to do their job safely. It is immoral and unconscionable that they lost their lives," said the Filipino American registered nurse, who works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, NNU has been tracking the deaths of U.S. registered nurses as well as the Covid-19 infections and deaths of health care workers because no one was reporting this information. The Sins of Omission report has researched and confirmed the deaths of more than 1,700 health care workers.

The NNU report includes a list of the known names of 213 registered nurses who died of Covid-19 as of Sept. 16, as well as the known names of 617 additional health care workers.

"Our state and federal governments must require hospitals and other health care employers to publicly report infection rates and deaths of their workers. We have the right to a safe workplace under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Information is a part of safety. But some employers are not telling nurses when they have been exposed or who has been infected. This is irresponsible and dangerous for nurses, health care workers, and patients.”

About 4% of registered nurses in the US are of Filipino descent, according to a Stat News estimate, but some hard-hit areas employ a larger share of this demographic. ProPublica reported that one of every four Filipinos in the the New York-New Jersey area works in healthcare, and they are four times more likely to be nurses. Filipino and Filipino American nurses comprise 20% of California's RN's.

Kanlungan, a website tracking the deaths of Filipino and Filipino American health workers around the world, has found that the U.S. has about three-times as many healthcare worker deaths than the Philippines.

The all-volunteer effort try to put a face and a story behind the statistics but it's not an easy task. They must get their information from a variety of sources and then confirmed. A more transparent effort in reporting could make it a bit easier.

Bonnie Castillo, (at microphone) was named on of TIME's most influential people in the world.

The NNU call for standardized, timely reporting between states and localities, rather than the current piecemeal approach, which undermines effective interpretation. A lag time of even a week can delay an effective response. Nurses call on all states and localities to publicly report at least the following data (for more details on what governments should report, read the statement):

• Daily reporting of data (as well as cumulative totals) on diagnostic testing and case counts at national, state, and county/local levels.
• Daily reporting and cumulative totals of data on health care worker infections and deaths at an establishment level, such as the specific hospital or business.
• Data on symptomatic cases must be reported at national, state, and county/local levels (influenza-like illness and Covid-like illness).
• Daily reporting of data on hospitalizations and deaths must be reported at national, state, and county/local levels.
• Hospital capacity data must be reported at national, state, and county/local levels; must be updated in real time; and must include total and available hospital beds by type (e.g., ICU, medical/surgical, telemetry, etc.), staffing, health care worker exposures and infections, and nosocomial (hospital-acquired) patient infections.
• Data on the stock and supply chain of essential personal protective equipment (PPE) and other supplies must be reported at national, state, and county/local levels.

After a few stories focusing on the Filipino and Filipino American death rate amng healthcare workers earlier this year, it has become an "old" story and editors and reporters are on working on the next breaking story. But COVID-19 doesn't operated on news cycles and the energy level of journalists, healthcare workers of Filipino descent continue to die from the virus at alarming rates and media outlets hardly notice it anymore.

As she wrote in Medium, Castillo says of her recognition by TIME: "This award lets nurses everywhere know that our expertise is recognized, and it validates our fight to speak truth to power. It means everything to nurses to know that the world is listening.

Congress has failed to act to protect us by addressing the immediate need to scale up domestic production of PPE and other critical medical supplies. Call your Senator at 202–335–6015 and demand they pass the HEROES act now.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A word of caution, this article is news laced with opinion. Readers are encouraged to seek multiple news sources to formulate their own positions. 

23 Asians and AAPIs among Time's 100 Most Influential people this year

Time magazine's covers used around the world to promote the Top 100 Influential People.

Time magazine named its 2020 TIME100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, which included 23 Asians and Asian Americans.

Of the 2020 Time100 list, Time CEO and editor in chief Edward Felsenthal writes:

 "This year's list looks far different than any of us could have predicted just six months ago. The Time 100 has always been a mirror of the world and those who shape it. While you will certainly find people who wield traditional power on this year's list—heads of state, CEOs, major entertainers—it also includes many extraordinary, lesser-known individuals who seized the moment to save lives, build a movement, lift the spirit, repair the world. ... Their work challenges each of us to wield our own influence toward a world that is healthier, more resilient, more sustainable and just."

It is not a surprise to see Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris on this election year list and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China's President Xi Jinping, each with a large following and global influence.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a global disaster, it's natural to expect that Dr. Anthony Fauci makes the list, however we are introduced to no less than six other lesser known Asian and Asian American medical professionals who played key roles in combatting the virus:

• Zhang Yongzhen, who led a team that published the first SARS-CoV-2 genome just days after the first cluster of cases emerged and likely within weeks of its jump into humans; 

• Shi Zhengli led one of the first scientific teams that isolated SARS-CoV-2, .; the coronavirus that went on to ravage the world;

• Dr. Zhong Nanshan, an experienced epidemiologist and physician, has been leading China’s National Health Commission’s expert panel for investigating the COVID-19 outbreak in China.  He has become the public face of China's efforts to halt the spread;

• Dr. Jung Eun-kyeong, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), has led South Korea's quick actions led to an effective corraling of the cirus before it could spread.

• Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-Genral of the World Health Organizations; and

• Bonnie Castillo, a Filipino American nurse and leader of two powerful nurses' unions and who was among the first to point out the lack of personal protective equipment for hospital workers.

To see who else made the Time100 list, including the other AAPI and Asians who made their marks in culture, athletics, social change and politics, click here.

For the first time, Time revealed the annual Time100 list with an hour-long special television event on ABC. Produced in partnership with P&G, the Time100 broadcast special is created by Time's Emmy award-winning television and film division Time Studios along with industry leading global storyteller Done + Dusted, and is presented with exclusive premier sponsor Citi, signature sponsor Toyota Venza, and signature sponsor Smirnoff. The show is available on demand on ABC.com.

On September 23, 24 and 25, Time will host Time100 honorees for a three-part series of Time100 Talks, Time's series of virtual conversations that convenes influential leaders across fields to encourage cross-disciplinary action toward a better world.

To register and see the full lineup of speakers and performers, visit: time.com/time100-talks/

Thousands of nurses rally for personal protective gear amidst pandemic

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Nurses demonstrate outside of Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center.

Seven months into a pandemic and nurses are still fighting for the personal protective equipment (PPE) that they need to care and comfort victims of COVID-19.

As frontline workers and actual victims during this COVID-19 crisis of a health care and economic system that prioritizes money over people, registered nurse members of National Nurses United (NNU) held on Aug. 5 at more than 200 actions inside and outside hospital facilities in at least 16 states and the District of Columbia to demand that elected leaders, government, and hospital employers take immediate action to save lives.

“COVID has exposed everything that has been wrong with our system,” said NNU president Zenei Cortez, a Filipino American RN who works at a Kaiser facility in South San Francisco, Calif. “The old way was a huge failure. Now is the time to reenvision a world based on nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community.”

“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 NNU executive director Bonnie Castillo, a Filipino American.  

Nurses want employers to protect nurses, other health care workers, and patients by following proper infection control practices, which include providing optimal PPE and a safe workload of patients.

The NNU is also advocating the passage of the HEROES Act which includes a provision giving another stimulus check to low-income individuals. It would be the second stimulus check received by Americans. The first check, provided by the CARES Act, expired July 31.

The House has passed a version of the HEROES Act but the Senate has yet to vote on it as Republicans try to trim the amount.

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NNU executive director Bonnie Castillo.

The House has passed a version of the HEROES Act but the Senate has yet to vote on it as Republicans try to trim the amount.

“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,” said Castillo.

National Nurses United, headquartered in Oakland, Calif., is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the country, with more than 155,000 members nationwide.

Veteran nurse dies from the coronavirus a week before she was supposed to retire

SCREEN CAPTURE

Jhulan Banago holds a picture of his late mother, Celia Yap-Banago, during a candlelight ceremony.

A week before she was supposed to retire, a 40-year veteran nurse died after caring for coronavirus patients.

Celia Yap Banago, 69, a longtime RN who died April 21 of COVID-19 after caring for an infected patient at the Research Medical Center in Kansas City.

She contracted the virus several weeks ago and had been recovering at home while under the care of her personal physician," a hospital statement said. She seemed to be recovering and wanted to return to work but she passed away "peacefully" on April 21, said one of her sons.

Family, friends and coworkers held a candlelight vigil April 23 in the hospital parking lot to honor Banago where behind facemasks, sang a muffled version of "Amazing Grace."

“She was a great mom, I can’t stress that enough. From all my friends reaching out to me, the one thing they all say — even though most of them have never met her — is that based on your character, seeing you, your brother, how you guys interact with other people, she had to be a very strong, independent woman, an amazing woman at that based on what she does and how she lives her life,” said her son Josh Banago, 26.

Donning scrubs for 40 years and caring for people amid a global pandemic, “now we know she is a hero,” Yap-Banago’s family earlier wrote in a statement to local media.

Yap-Banago was one of many RNs at the hospital who have expressed concern over inadequate COVID-19 preparation at RMC.

Those concerns include insufficient supplies of the optimal personal protective equipment for RNs and other health care workers, delays in notifying nurses of being exposed to a suspected infected patients and staff and expected to continue reporting to work when exposed.

RN Charlene Carter says that she and Yap-Banago in late March treated a patient who was later found to have COVID-19. She says they treated the patient without N95 masks or any of the specialized protective equipment typically used when treating COVID-19 patients in intensive care units and other facilities.

SCREEN CAPTURE

Jhulan Banago, son of Celia Yap-Banago, spoke at a candlelight rally.

“Celia was an amazing nurse that dedicated her service for countless years at Research and a dear friend to all of us,” said RMC nurse Charlene Carter. “I feel that I can speak for many nurses when I say that the loss of one of our dear fallen soldiers on the front line of this pandemic is more than devastating, it is a wake-up call.”

Across the US dozens of RNs have died from COVID-19, thousands more have been infected. Yap-Banago was the sixth Filipino nurse to die from the deadly virus known to Views From the Edge.

As of this Tuesday morning, there are over 1-million cases of coronavirus resulting in almost 57,000 deaths. By 2014, 27 US healthcare workers have died.

Pascaline Muhindura, a nurse and union representative who has been treating COVID-19 patients at RMC, says despite Yap-Banago's death, there have been no significant improvements in the availability of safety supplies in recent weeks.

“We honor the life and career of Celia who gave so much of herself for her patients,” said NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, a Filipino American RN. “No nurse, no health care worker, should have to put their lives, their health, and their safety at risk for the failure of hospitals and our elected leaders to provide the protection they need to safely care for patients.”

Nurses risking their lives caring for coronavirus patients plead for more protective gear

Nationwide, nurses are pleading for help from Donald Trump who can order manufacturers to make protective gear.

As the first member of the National Nurses United (NNU) diedThursday, the union made a new appeal for more protective gear to care for patients who have COVID-19.

Noel Sinkiat, 64, planned to retire in December after 41 years working as a nurse at Howard University Hospital died, but he was stricked by the coronavirus and died on March 27.

Sinkiat, a Filipino American, was the first member of National Nurses United, which represents about 150,000 health-care workers nationwide, to succumb to the virus, the union said.

National Nurses United members are on the frontlines of the pandemic caring for COVID-19 patients. The union said that the executive orders and presidential memorandum the White House has issued regarding the use of the Defense Production Act do not yet fully exercise the presidential authority available under the statute.

“The president has taken the first steps to exercise the authorities given to him by the Defense Production Act,” said NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN. 

“We applaud him for using the statute to order ventilator production by General Motors, and we urge him to take similar actions to order manufacturers to immediately increase production of respirators, including N95s, and other personal protective equipment,” said the Filipino American RN.

NNU sent a letter to President Donald J. Trump Thursday to demand that he immediately and fully invoke the presidential authorities granted in the Defense Production Act to increase the supply of necessary personal protective equipment for health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The union called on the president to order manufacturers to urgently increase production of respirators, face shields, coveralls, gloves, gowns, testing equipment and supplies, ventilators and ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machines.

“Across the nation, our health care workforce does not have the personal protective equipment it needs to safely care for patients without risking exposure to the virus,” NNU stated in the letter. “As a result, health care workers are at risk of illness and death, which puts our entire health care system at risk of collapse. Further, when health care workers are exposed to the virus, they risk transmitting the virus to their families, patients, and communities. If our country fails to immediately protect our health care workers, we will fail to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Medical professionals caring for coronavirus patients have been urging Trump to order manufacturers to produce more personal protective equipment.  He has been reluctant to use that power despite mounting pressure from members of Congress and governors. 

The union has called on Trump to immediately take the following actions to invoke the Defense Production Act:

• Invoke Title III of the Defense Production Act immediately by directing increased production of equipment and supplies from existing manufacturers, directing other industrial manufacturing facilities to transition to production of the equipment and supplies needed in the COVID-19 response, and immediately generate manufacturing purchase orders to ensure expedient production of essential equipment and supplies;
• Direct the Department of Health and Human Services to gather information on supplies and implement restrictions on hoarding; and
• Ensure the immediate and continued release and distribution of personal protective equipment, testing equipment, ventilators, and ECMO machines in the strategic national stockpile.

Two AAPI health professionals die from COVID-19

Dr. Alex Hsu, left, and nurse Araceli Buendia Llagan died from the coronavirus.

ASAM NEWS

An ICU nurse from Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami has become the latest health worker who died after treating patients for coronavirus, reports CBS4.

The death of Araceli Buendia Llagan, a Filipina American, comes three days after Dr. Alex Hsu, 67, of Broward County, Florida died on March 24, according to the Sun Sentinel.

Ît is not clear if the two contracted COVID-19 from treating patients or elsewhere.

“Araceli dedicated nearly 33 years of her life treating some of our most critically ill patients,” Jackson Memorial Hospital said in a statement. “During her long and storied career, she also mentored and trained other nurses, and was a champion for the profession. As we battle this global public health crisis, caregivers throughout the world are bravely serving on the frontlines, often putting their patients’ lives before theirs. These medical professionals – people like Araceli – are the true heroes, and we salute them all.”

Hsu’s daughter declined to comment, telling the Sun Sentinel “I really need to be with my family.”

“It’s so sad,” a receptionist at Hsu’s medical office told the paper.

Last Tuesday in New York City,  Mount Sinai Hospital West nurse Kious Kelly, 48, died. The hospital was reportedly suffering a shortage of personal protection gear, according to the Daily Mail.

The danger facing medical personnel caring for those infected with the coronavirus is high because of the shortage of personal protective gear.

“When nurses and doctors get sick from this virus who is going to be left to take care of the public?”  asked registered nurse Bonnie Castillo, exectutive director of National Nurses United, the nation's largest union of nurses. The NNU has been pushing for more personal protective gear such as masks and gowns, ventilators and tests. 

Despite the risk of contracting COVID-19, nurses and doctors continue to show up to work.

Views From the Edge contributed to this report.

Nurses: California needs to do more on protective gear

Bonnie Castillo, RN, executive director of the National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association.

The coronavirus infection rate is outpacing any attempt to slow it down. The problem is the promises made by politicians is outpacing the deliverables.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United Saturday (March 21) called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials to sharply escalate steps to get immediately personal protective equipment to nurses and other health care workers.

“While the Governor has taken some important steps, including the statewide stay-at-home order, and reopening two closed hospitals, we need to do far more, especially in producing proper personal protective equipment,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN, executive director of CNA and NNU.

“We hear from scores of nurses every day, across the U.S., and many of them in California. They still do not have access to proper protective masks, such as N95 respirators, and full head-to-toe protective clothing,” said the a Filipino American registered nurse.

“They fear for their safety, for their patients’ safety, for their family’s safety, and for their co-workers’ safety. If they are not protected and safe, more people will die, and the virus will continue to spread in greater numbers.”

To make matters worse, the California Department of Public Health, which has been underfunding public health budgets for a decade, yesterday informed California hospitals that it is waiving the state's current strong requirements on hospital safety.

This waiver will allow hospitals to sharply lower practices on a wide variety of standards, including personal protective equipment (PPEs) and even safe nurse staffing for patients (nursing ratios).

On PPEs, CDPH cites the much lower, non-mandatory, guidelines suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that is allowing hospitals to use vastly inferior materials, such as bandanas, that provide almost no effective protection when patients are highly contagious.

“At a time when nurses are already being told to use makeshift, inferior coverings, see N95 respirators locked up, and even being disciplined when they bring in their own N95s, this is the worst message we can send to hospital employers,” Castillo noted.

“When nurses see that neither public officials, nor their hospitals, are putting much value on their safety, that is a prescription for even further disaster,” warns Castillo, “that will have tragic consequences and do nothing to stop an escalating disaster.”

California should be moving in exactly the opposite direction, said Castillo.

While President Trump has refused to use his authority under the just re-enacted 1950 Defense Production Act to order domestic manufacturers to mass produce personal protective equipment, as well as ventilators and other critical hospital supplies, states should take the steps they can, said Castillo.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he will use state funding to pay businesses to mass produce protective equipment for health care workers. “Gov. Newsom should do that as well,” Castillo said.

NNU has surveyed more than 8,200 nurses from all US states and territories. As of March 16, Just 55 percent report have access to N95 respirators, and only 27 percent have access to the highest standard, powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs).

Only 24 percent say their employer has sufficient PPEs on stock to protect staff when the inevitable surge of COVID-19 patients occurs.

Filipino American nurses say hospitals ill-prepared for coronavirus pandemic

NATIONAL NURSES UNITED

Nurse Bonnie Castillo, executive director of National Nurses United.

When the novel coronavirus hit California, Jamille Cabacungan, a Filipino American registered nurse at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, rushed to sign up as a volunteer to treat infected patients. 

She hesitated to answer, however, when asked recently about her training for that job.

The hospital is providing the necessary gear, she said, and more heightened training for some nurses. But not for all, and much of her training is coming from videos forwarded to her by the hospital, as opposed to hands-on learning-by-doing. 

Her colleagues are depending on her — “we don’t want to put our pregnant coworkers or those who live with elderly people at risk,” she added — but the preparation is less intense than she expected, considering the risk involved.

As California’s coronavirus strategy has moved from containment to mitigation, the health care workers on the first line of response to the epidemic are also finding themselves on the front line of potential infection. 

The frontline caregivers are also begging for more protective gear, said Zenei Cortez, one of the presidents of the California Nurses Assciation/National Nurses United.

Health care workers are begging for personal protective equipment (PPE) to help them care for sick patients without contracting coronavirus. Cortez, a Fililpino American, told MSNBC  that "it's not too much to ask our administration to give us what we need to safely take care of our patients."

RELATED: Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the US?

PPE, which includes masks, gloves, headgear and clothing, is quickly being used. Reports from Washington state, which has the greatest number of deaths from the virus, nurses have resorted to using bandannas for a lack of face masks.

National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the United States, today called on an embattled nation to dramatically ramp up health care capacity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Imagine we were at war. We are—with a pandemic,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN.executive director of the Oakland-based NNU.

The Filipino American nurse noted the warning last week by a panel of leading immunologists, epidemiologists, and infectious disease researchers at the University of California San Francisco which predicted 40 to 70 percent of the US population will be infected over the next 12 to 18 months.

“With a 1 percent mortality rate, the panel predicted up to 1.6 million people could die. That’s more than the total of all Americans who have died in all US wars,” said Castillo. “Yet our health care capacity is far short of what we need to respond to this national emergency.”

At present, Castillo noted, the amount of optimal personal protective equipment needed for nurses and other health care workers, is “drastically short of what is needed to stem the danger of becoming infected and exposing patients, family members, and other health care staff.”

“Instead of rolling back standards, as the Centers for Disease Control and the American Hospital Association are proposing, we need to substantially increase the supply of the highest standard of protective equipment. That includes powered air purifying respirators, N95 respirators, and other proper protective clothing and gear,” Castillo said.

One immediate step, she noted, should be the coordinated release and distribution of all state and federal stockpiles of PPE for nurses and health care workers.

“For too long, ‘just-in-time’ hospital management practices have prioritized profits over stocking enough supplies and staffing enough nurses to safely care for patients, and this has eroded the ability of our nation’s hospitals to properly prepare for emergencies like pandemics.

Level 3 Personal Protective Equipment provides maximum protection.

Cortez told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC that California Gov. Gavin Newsom says there are over 20,000 respirators being distributed but "Where are they?" asks Cortez.

“We should also prioritize testing and paid quarantine for nurses and other healthcare workers who are exposed, to prevent the further spread of the virus and to meet the demand of a surge,” said Castillo.

Various scenarios project up to 21 million people in the United States may need hospitalization, at a time when the country has only 925,000 hospital beds—less than half the per capita-rate of comparable countries. And if nurses and other health care workers are not protected, nurses emphasize, the hospital beds will not be staffed.

The shortage extends to ventilators, negative pressure isolation rooms, and intensive care beds, critical for treating COVID-19 patients. 

To expand health care capacity, NNU recommends the following steps:  

• Re-open all hospitals closed in the past five years (more than 120 since 2015), many of them in medically underserved communities. Bar the closure of any additional hospitals. 
• Convert some current consumer production to medical equipment, as China has done, including ventilators and the highest standard level of personal protective equipment for health care workers. At the onset of World War II, the Roosevelt Administration directed auto factories to immediately shift from car production to making tanks, airplane engines and other war materials.   
• Fund construction of new hospitals and other medical facilities, including community health centers, and mass production facilities for personal protective equipment and ventilators, which will also create employment opportunities at a time when many are losing jobs due to the virus-related economic crisis. 
• Implement immediate free medical education and training in public colleges and high schools for new registered nurses and other health care workers, without lowering licensing or professional standards.