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.

Mothers Day: 'Our moms are heroes,' says nurse's son

COURTESY OF YAP-BANAGO FAMILY

It was always “others first” with Celia Yap-Banago, RN (holding dog).

Mothers Day this year was especially poignant for those families of nurses who lost their lives caring for COVID-19 patients.

Losing even one registered nurse impacts countless lives. Losing more than 400 of them to Covid-19 — many of them mothers, in a women-dominated profession — changes families and communities across the country forever. 

This Mother’s Day, the children of two Filipino American RN mothers who died of Covid-19 looks back at his moms’ incredible contributions to the world, and speaking out for nurse protections so no more families have to stand in their shoes.

The stories, courtesy of National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S., tells us of two Filipino American RNs, but they represent the scores of Filipino American nurses who have died since the pandemic began last year.

“I would do anything and everything to bring back mom for five minutes,” said Jhulan Banago, 29. “We can’t do that and change anything, but moving forward, you have to be pretty damn proud of a parent who lost the fight to Covid because they were helping treat patients with Covid.”

Jhulan’s mother Celia Yap-Banago died of Covid-19 on April 21, 2020 — just short of her 40th work anniversary as a registered nurse at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo. Now, Jhulan, his brother Josh, and his father Amado, take a short drive from their home to the nearby cemetery every weekend with flowers and Yap-Banago’s favorite snack: chips and a coke. They’ll do the same on Mother’s Day, followed by a barbecue with cousins, who are also nurses.

“We still set out a plate [for her] any time we eat, because we want her to know we are still thinking of her,” said Jhulan. “She is still very, very loved.”

“Everyone always says we wouldn’t be where we are today without certain people. In regards to my family, the reason why we are here today is because of mom,” said Jhulan, citing his mom’s hard work, getting her education, and becoming the first in her family to move from the Philippines to the United States. Other family members followed, and she helped every step of the way.

“She opened the doors to my cousins no questions asked, took them under her roof, under her wing. It was definitely ‘others first’ with mom,” said Jhulan, noting that even when his mother was sick with Covid, she talked about going back to work.

Yap-Banago and her colleagues demanded optimal PPE in the earliest days of the pandemic. Instead, Research Medical Center, owned by the extremely wealthy HCA Healthcare corporate hospital chain, locked up and rationed N95 respirators. More than a year after her death, her fellow nurses are still fighting for even basic protections, as her colleague Pascaline Muhindura testified to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections in March.

“I say this as someone who lost their mom: Everyone working with patients and people with Covid should have the proper PPE to do their job safely,” said Jhulan, who still keeps in touch with his mother’s coworkers. They even met for a socially distant lunch on the anniversary of her death. While his mother never wanted the spotlight, he thinks she would be proud to know that her story has been shared widely, all the way to Congress, in support of protections that could save her colleagues’ lives.

“The more her story gets out, the more it should hopefully give people the courage to fight for what they think is right. I hope no more 29-year-olds have to go through what I did. I hope no more families have to go through what we did,” said Jhulan. “Mom is a hero — she has always been mine.”

COURTESY OF KENNETH YUMANG

Kenneth Yumang, right, lost his father and mother to COVID-19.

Regina Yumang would go to the mall with her friends and come home with clothes that her son Kenneth, 19, hadn’t even asked her to buy. She was just that generous.

“My mom was a very loving mom. I’m an only child, and when I was growing up, she always gave her full attention to me,” said Kenneth, a college student studying accounting and finance. “She was the best mom I could have ever asked for.”

Regina worked as a nurse for several years in the Philippines, where she grew up. In 1986, she pursued her dream of coming to the United States, landing in the New York City area and meeting her husband, Dennis. When Covid struck, she was caring for patients in the ICU at the Manhattan VA, where she had worked since 1993.

Kenneth said his mom absolutely loved being a nurse. But when he picked her up from work during the initial months of Covid, it was obvious the pandemic was taking a toll.

“She always felt so depressed. In the first wave in March, in the ICU, all the Covid patients passed away,” he said. “She always felt so sad for those people who passed in the first wave because they had no family to be with them.

Although they were concerned about the virus, Kennth said as the months passed, his family began to worry less about his mother catching it. Then there was the second wave.

Regina Yumang was hospitalized with Covid on Dec. 17. Kenneth’s father Dennis also became ill and landed in the hospital on Dec. 19, passing away just three days later. Regina died on Jan. 17, 2021 at the age of 62.

“In our faith, we would say, the Lord takes the good people away early,” said Kenneth, who now lives at his uncle’s home, and who has coped with the loss of both parents through his Catholic faith and by being around family. This Mother’s Day, he will place chocolate and flowers near his mother’s urn to let her know how much he loves her and how proud he is that she fought to save so many lives. He hopes anyone else who lost an RN mom to Covid feels the same.

“Our moms are heroes, and they did everything they could to save more people. They thought of others before themselves,” said Kenneth, who believes nurses deserve strong protections. “Our mothers will always be with us, watching over us.”

(They are) “the reason we are here today.”