'The Pitt' takes advantage of its Asian American storylines

THE PITT
Kristin Villanueva, left, plays nurse Princess, and Amielynn Abellera portrays Perla, in the HBO Max series "The Pitt," will have expanded roles in upcoming episodes.

 The television series The Pitt, has been praised for the realism of issues, problems and people of an urban emergency room. For Asian Americans, Filipino Americans in particular, the award-winning show is about to get more real. 

As The Pitt winds up its second season the pcoming episodes tackle the problem of ICE and the federal agencies impact on the ER, especially its immigrant staff. 

That could mean trouble for the Filipino staff, Dr. Trinity Santos (played by Isa Briones), RNs Princess (Kristin Villanueva), and Perlah (Amielynn Abellera).

When casting for the show, the producers wanted the show to reflect a real-life ER and if you've ever stayed in a hospital for any length of time, most likely, that would mean Filipino medical personnel.

A win for the ensemble

The industry is finally taking notes. Just this week, the cast took home the Actors Award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series. For those of us tracking "Views from the Edge," seeing the Filipino trio stand on stage alongside Irene Choi, Supriya Ganesh, and Shabana Azeez felt like a seismic shift.

This win validates what we’ve known all along: when you stop treating Asian characters as "background techs" and start treating them as the emotional heartbeat of the story, you don't just get a better show—you get a winner. For the Filipino community, which has historically been the backbone of the American medical system with none of the glory, seeing three Pinay actresses recognized as the best team on television is a full-circle moment we won't soon forget.

What makes The Pitt head and shoulders above other medical shows is that although the cast is large, each character are given moments within the show to round out the character's backstory. The Filipino trio will get plenty of screen time in the coming episodes of this season.

Already, we've seen the Filipino nurses converse in Tagalog when sharing gossip and discovered that Dr. Santos, who is of mixed racial heritage, is also a kababayan.

The lullaby heard round the world

If you haven't seen the clip of Dr. Santos (Isa Briones) singing to a "Baby Jane Doe" in a quiet corner of the ER, your social media feed is about to get hit with a tidal wave of feels. In a scene that has the FilAm community in a collective sob, Briones leans into her roots with a haunting rendition of "Ili-Ili, Tulog Anay."(roughly translated "Sleep Little One, Sleep.")

This wasn't just another TV moment; it was a cultural earthquake. By choosing a specific Hiligaynon lullaby — a suggestion from Briones actual father, Broadway’s Jon Jon Briones — Briones brought an ethnographic precision to The Pitt that we rarely see on prestige TV. It wasn’t just "representation"; it was a deep dive into the specific regional soul of the Western Visayas.

Seeing the hospital’s most "hard-edged" resident soften into her heritage to comfort an abandoned child is a masterclass in how to bridge the gap between the "model minority" myth and human reality

A new disruptor: Joy Kwon shakes things up

While the Filipino "trio" of Santos, Nurse Princess, and Nurse Perlah has built a fortress of kapwa (shared identity) in the breakroom, a new force has arrived to test those walls. Enter Joy Kwon (played by Irene Choi), a sardonic, hyper-individualistic Korean American first-year student.

Joy is the ultimate "lone wolf." With a photographic memory and zero interest in the hospital's social shorthand, she is the perfect foil to the established AAPI dynamic. We’re hearing whispers that upcoming episodes will see Joy challenge the "Pinay Power" duo, sparking a nuanced debate on workplace gatekeeping vs. cultural safe spaces. It’s a sophisticated look at intra-Asian friction that moves far beyond the monolithic "Asian" label.

Joy Kwon also has run-in with South Asian character, Dr. Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) who navigates the halls of the hospital under the watchful, often critical eye of her mother, Dr. Eileen Shamsi, Joy arrives with a very different kind of baggage.

Irene Choi plays Joy Kwon

For Victoria, the hospital is a family business. Her struggle is about carving out an individual identity while carrying the weight of two generations of South Asian medical excellence. It’s about maintenance of status and the fear of being the "weak link" in a chain of success.

Joy, conversely, is the classic "disruptor." Her family background—whispered to be rooted in a gritty, working-class Korean American experience—doesn't offer the safety net of a senior attending mom. For Joy, her photographic memory isn't just a party trick; it’s her only weapon in a system where she doesn't have a "legacy" to fall back on.

While the Filipino trio provides the show's cultural heartbeat through their shared kapwa, the tension between Kwon and Javadi provides its intellectual friction. It’s a bold look at the fact that "Asian American" isn't a monolith—it’s a spectrum of class, history, and expectation.

ICE visits 'The Pitt'

The Pitt  executive producer John Wells and star Noah Wyle have confirmed that the series will tackle the real-world impact of ICE raids on hospital environments. 

At the request of HBO executives, the production team was asked to ensure the episode presents a "balanced" view that acknowledges multiple perspectives on the issue rather than taking a singular political stance.

Wyle described the show's approach as a "Rorschach test," where the drama aims to depict the "realistic" and "untenable" situations doctors face without making overt value judgments, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions.

        FYI: You can stream 'The Pitt' on HBO Max. New episodes on Thursdays.

Wells emphasized that ICE raids are a "real issue in emergency rooms" and that the show's priority is depicting how these events affect patient care and the medical team's duties.

The ICE storyline is expected to heavily involve the show's Asian American immigrant and first-generation staff, who have been central to the series' portrayal of the "backbone" of the American healthcare system. That might mean the Filipino staff might be central to the plot.

The ICE storyline is expected to be intertwined with other narrative threads reflecting the fictionalized impacts of President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," including significant cuts to Medicaid.

View from the edge: A lesson for Hollywood

A plea to the Hollywood decision-makers, producers and writers:

When you stop treating Asian characters as "background techs" and start treating them as the emotional heartbeat of the story, you don't just get a better show — you get a winner by engaging the viewers. Beyond simple representation, it becomes representation that matters.

For many Filipino American viewers, seeing their reality reflected on screen is long overdue. The show challenges outdated tropes and offers an authentic portrayal—from nurses speaking Tagalog to scenes that capture deep-rooted Filipino values such as utang na loob (debt of gratitude) and kapwa (shared identity).

For the Filipino American community, which has historically been the backbone of the American medical system with none of the glory, seeing three Pinay actresses recognized as part of the best team on television is a full-circle moment and portraying them as three-dimensional human beings is history unto itself.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Filipino nurses win settlement from employers

Three Filipino nurses won a major  settlement  with four health care companies to rescind the “stay or pay” provisions in employment contract.

“I feel relieved that the settlement will enable immigrant nurses like me to leave onerous working conditions. Eliminating breach of contract fees gives us the freedom to seek better opportunities while ensuring we’re treated with the dignity and respect we deserve. This fosters a more inclusive and fairer workplace where nurses can focus more on providing quality care without the looming threat of financial penalties,” said Kathleen Landazabal, one of the nurses who filed charges against Premier, her former employer.

The other plaintiffs are Gerarlyn Sept Docot and Edmon Calizon. 

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) along with co-counsel Murphy Anderson PLLC, on July 22 announced the settlement with four health care companies to rescind the “stay or pay” provisions in employment contracts for current and former employees, including three Filipino immigrant nurses who resigned citing unsafe working conditions.

In May, the nurses filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), resulting in the settlement with Premier Members, LLC, a New York-based company with health care facilities in Pennsylvania, Priority Healthcare Group, LLC, a health care staffing company, the Gardens at West Shore, and the Gardens at Wyoming Valley. On Friday, the NLRB approved the settlement.

In the settlement, Premier agreed to communicate to staff that illegal work rules have been rescinded and agreed to institute a training for managers and other staff who have any responsibility for nurses recruited outside the United States to ensure employment practices conform to the National Labor Relations Act.

”’Stay or pay’ contracts and other training repayment agreement provisions (TRAPs) are coercive tactics that employers use to take advantage of the vulnerable workers they recruit outside the country,” said Elizabeth Koo, Senior Counsel at AALDEF. “We will continue to fight for other immigrant nurses subjected to similarly poor working conditions and illegal contracts.”

The Philippines has been a major source of health care professionals, especially nurses, because their education ad training is similar to Western standards. Filipino nurses are in demand around the world but especially in Great Britain, Canada, Australia and the US because they are fluent in English. 

There is a shortage of nurses in the United States because of the retirement of baby boomers and the burnout factor caused by the demands of the healthcare systems that employ them. The Philippine-trained nurses are issued special work visas that bypass traditional immigration quotas.

Because of their non-citizen status, they are vulnerable to become victims of exploitation amid threats of deportation.

“Stay or pay” provisions are repayment agreement provisions that penalize workers for leaving their jobs. Last year, five Filipino immigrant nurses filed charges with the NLRB against their former employer, CommuniCare Family of Companies, to challenge the company’s use of “stay or pay” provisions in the nurses’ employment contracts. These nurses similarly resigned from their jobs, citing intolerable working conditions.

“Immigrants are often too terrified to voice concerns even when facing unsafe working conditions. This settlement is proof that suffering in silence is not an option, but resisting is. We are fighting back, not just for our own, but also for those who cannot speak for themselves. Through this settlement, we could finally regain our dignity and be treated with respect,” said Docot, another nurse and former employee of Premier.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.

US hospitals look to the Philippines to fill shortage of health care workers; nursing recruits win lawsuits

Filipino nurses settle lawsuit with Albany Medical Center.

With the emergence of the COVID-19 delta variant and continued demand for health care professionals, hospitals and recruiters around the world will look towards the Philippines for help. Filipino nurses are in high demand.

Exacerbating the shortage of health care workers is the Great Resignation. US nurses are quitting or retiring, exhausted of taking care of thousands of COVID-19 patients that have overwhelmed hospitals. Nearly 1 in 5 health care workers have quit their job during the pandemic and the Labor Department projects a shortfall of more than a million nurses in the coming year..

“Every time there’s a US shortage, the US has turned to the Philippines for help,” said Leo Feli-Jurado, professor of nursing at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

With the lure of higher pay and a better chance of securing a US, British or Australian visa, Filipino nurses are answering the call. But there are hidden pitfalls in the fine print offered by some recruiters

US embassies and consulates were instructed last summer that they may prioritize “as emergencies on a case-by-case basis the immigrant visa cases of certain health care professionals who will work at a facility engaged in pandemic response.”

“There has never been a more urgent need for the care that foreign-trained nurses provide than during the current COVID-19 pandemic and its looming aftermath,” the American Hospital Association wrote last June to the US State Department.

“These professionals play critical roles in ensuring the health of the communities we serve. … Foreign-trained nurses do not displace American workers. At the same time, the demand for nurses continues to grow. Many foreign-trained nurses are recruited to rural and inner-city hospitals, locations that find it more difficult to recruit domestically.”

Jurado said Filipino nurses often end up taking jobs in high stress environments that others might refuse. That may have contributed to disproportionate risks during the pandemic. According to a recent survey, Filipinos made up more than a quarter of COVID-19 deaths among US nurses, despite being only 4% of the workforce.

A group of nurses from the Philippines have filed a suit against Health Carousel, a healthcare staffing agency based in Ohio, accusing the company of wage theft and other unfair labor practices, reports Bloomberg earlier this month.

The lawsuit was filed by Novie Dale Carmen, a nurse from the Philippines who signed a three-year commitment with Health Carousel to come to the U.S. and work at a hospital in Muncy, Pa. Carmen ended up paying a $20,000 quitting fee to get out of her contract early.

Low wages, mandatory overtime that did not count toward the 6,240 hours on her contract, and a ban keeping her from discussing her working conditions pushed Ms. Carmen to the costly decision to pay the quitting fee.

"I was basically trapped," she told Bloomberg. "Duped."

Since originally filing the suit against Health Carousel, two more plaintiffs have joined. The suit accuses the company of human trafficking — which the Department of Homeland Security defines as the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor — wage theft and racketeering.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Health Carousel denied wrongdoing.

"We are proud of our work to place internationally trained nurses at understaffed hospital systems in the United States," the company said. "We invest to recruit these professionals and sponsor their employment-based visas to fulfill their dreams," adding that it expects employees who do not finish their contracts to pay back its upfront expenses, which include things such as a visa, licensing and travel.

The news outlet cited a filing from last year where Health Carousel said it "denies all allegations that Plaintiff or any of its nurses were indentured servants to Health Carousel" and denied claims that its contract terms are "draconian."

It is the not the first lawsuit against a recruitment agency.

Most recently in June last year, a New York court ordered Prompt Nurssing Employment Agency LLC, doing business as Sentosa Services, to pay the Filipino plaintiffs $1.56 million after it had violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and broken their contract by threatening to seriously harm the nurses financially if they left their jobs early.

The court ruled that Sentosa violated the trafficking victims act because the nurses were forced to remain in the agency’s employ to avoid repercussions and charges they wouldn’t be able to pay.

In a similar case versus Albany Medical Center, Attorney General James said in a press statement: “By forcing its employees to choose between paying outrageous sums to leave their jobs, or facing immigration authorities, Albany Med violated their rights as workers and as individuals.”

A New York State Nurses Association lawsuit against Albany Medical Center led to the agreement which resulted in the hospital paying the nurses $90,000.

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

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.

U.S. health care relies on Filipinxs while ignoring their health needs

PHILIPPINE NURSES ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

By Carlos Irwin A. Oronce, MD

REPRINTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

In the US, Filipinxs are the third largest Asian subgroup and have represented a crucial part of the country’s health care workforce since the mid-20th century. Although the 2.9 million Filipinxs in the US represent about 1% of the population, approximately 1 of 4 Filipinx working adults are frontline health care workers. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a disproportionate toll on Filipinx communities in the US and on Filipinx health care workers, specifically. 

The absence of disaggregated race/ethnicity data for COVID-19 has masked how the pandemic has affected Filipinxs in the US. Policy makers and researchers must recognize that these disparities are not limited to COVID-19 but are a critical example of how data aggregation under a single Asian category has hidden the health needs of the Filipinx population.

Missing in the Data, Missing in Policy Discussions

Aggregate race/ethnicity data for COVID-19 cases and deaths mask the disproportionate burden on Asian subgroups, including Filipinxs in the US, leaving these disparities unrecognized and unaddressed. Asians comprise nearly 6% of the US population but only about 3% of COVID-19 cases and 4% of its deaths, suggesting that Asian Americans are not disproportionately affected by COVID-19. 

Yet a different picture has emerged for Filipinxs in Hawaii, the only state which publicly reports disaggregated Asian data: Filipinx residents comprise 16% of the population but 22% of COVID-19 deaths. 

Similar analyses are not possible nationally or in any other state. While some states may collect data on Filipinxs, these data are typically restricted and only available through public information requests. For example, Filipinxs comprise 42% of COVID-19 deaths among Asian adults (18-64 years) in California despite making up just 20% of the state’s nonelderly Asian adult population. No other Asian subgroup accounted for more than 15% of deaths.

Filipinx Share of COVID-19 Deaths Among Asians and Share of the Asian Population of California in 2020, by Single Race Non–Latino Asian Subgroup of Adults (18-64 Years)

Importantly, this disparate impact of COVID-19 would have remained undetected without the media, research, and advocacy efforts that exposed the higher burden on Filipinxs, especially among health care workers. The grassroots transnational organization, AF3IRM has a poignant online tribute to fallen Filipinx health care workers (https://www.kanlungan.net/). A report by National Nurses United showed that Filipinxs comprise an estimated 32% of COVID-19 deaths among nurses in the US despite representing only 4% of nurses nationally.

Moreover, the lack of disaggregated COVID-19 mortality data in public health surveillance systems hides the mortality burden among Filipinx health care workers. Researchers have undertaken “work-around” studies that use the conventional data available to corroborate inferences made by online tributes and ad hoc reports. 

One such work-around study by Escobedo and colleagues using data from the 2018 American Community Survey 5-year estimates showed that having a higher percentage of Filipinxs in a county’s health care workforce was significantly associated with a greater share of COVID-19 deaths among Asian Americans. In the conventional data surveillance infrastructure used to assess health disparities, the toll of COVID-19 among Filipinx communities has not been recognized.

The disproportionate mortality among Filipinx nurses is particularly alarming given the historical reasons that contributed to the high representation of Filipinxs in the health care workforce. US-sponsored nursing schools were established in the Philippines during the American colonial period (1898-1946), followed by a deliberate immigration policy that recruited health care workers from the Philippines to address US workforce shortages. 

Currently, nurses from the Philippines represent a majority of internationally educated nurses in the US and are more likely to work in inpatient and critical care units, thereby facing a higher risk of occupational exposure to COVID-19. 

Moreover, 18% of Asian Americans live in a household with at least 1 health care worker, the second highest percentage across all race/ethnicity groups. This proportion is even higher among Filipinx households, 38% of which are both multigenerational and include at least 1 health care worker. These data suggest that occupational and structural factors have contributed to a greater risk of COVID-19 exposure and transmission among Filipinxs.

Data Aggregation as a Contributor to Filipinx Health Disparities

Data aggregation has not only obscured the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on specific racial/ethnic subgroups, but it has also hampered the ability to monitor for preexisting risk factors contributing to higher mortality among subgroups. 

Efforts to identify health disparities among Filipinxs often rely on data from the California Health Interview Survey because, to our knowledge, it is the only large-scale health survey in the US that disaggregates Filipinx data and therefore allows robust analyses. A study of this survey data by Adia and colleagues found that Filipinxs were three times more likely to have hypertension and two times more likely to have diabetes—both of which are risk factors for severe COVID-19—compared with White individuals in California. 

The aggregation of Asian groups in most public health data has systematically obscured Filipinx disparities related to long-term conditions, limiting the ability to leverage official statistics to garner support for investment and interventions focused on addressing these disparities.

The idea that data disaggregation is imperative for identifying health disparities among individual Asian American groups, including Filipinxs, has long preceded the COVID-19 pandemic. While efforts by organizations in civil society have provided important signals regarding Filipinx health, these organizations do not have the same capacity as federal and state governments, which carry the ultimate responsibility for collecting data to guide public health response. The success of the California Health Interview Survey in drawing attention to health disparities for Asian subgroups, such as Filipinxs, illustrates that high quality race/ethnicity data can be collected feasibly.9

Without disaggregated data for Asian subgroups, Filipinxs have been ignored in public health planning efforts, perpetuating health disparities within a community that has shouldered a disproportionate share of the frontline health care work. Therefore, the inaction of government and health care institutions to collect and report detailed race/ethnicity information must be reframed not as the default choice, but as an active choice that perpetuates preventable disparities.

Implications for COVID-19 and Beyond

While the increased availability of COVID-19 vaccines will provide an end to the pandemic, policy makers should take concrete steps to ensure an equitable recovery that will also prepare the country for a more equitable response to future health challenges. Public health surveillance and health care delivery systems must adequately capture granular self-reported race and ethnicity data. The routine collection of these data would be consistent with the proposed data collection standards issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services for population surveys.10 Adoption of such policies are important first steps toward keeping an equity focus during the post–COVID-19 recovery, particularly for Filipinx health care workers and Filipinx communities in the US.

About the author: Carlos Irwin A. Oronce, MD, MPH, National Clinician Scholars Program, University of California Los Angeles, (coronce@mednet.ucla.edu). Originally published July 23, 2021. Read the entire article here.

Prince Charles praises Filipino health care workers for their contributions to the United Kingdom

 

On the eve of Philippine Independence Day, the future king of Great Britain, expressed his gratitude to Filipino healthcare workers in the United Kingdom.

"To these wonderfully selfless people, I wanted to offer my most heartfelt gratitude for the outstanding care and comfort you give to your patients," Prince Charles said in a video message shared by British Ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce on Friday, June 11.

June 12 is recognized as Philippine Independence Day, as the day when Filipinos declared their independence from Spain.

"You have made a truly remarkable contribution to the health and well-being of so many people across the country at such a difficult time," he added.

Prince Charles noted that the friendship between the two nations is “stronger than ever at a time when we have faced the unprecedented challenges of the coronavirus.”

“Those links have provided the foundation for us to work together towards a better future. We are more fortunate than we perhaps realize to have many thousands of nurses and other healthcare workers from the Philippines working in the UK particularly in the National Health Service,” the Prince of Wales said in his statement.

Over 200,000 Filipinos are living in the United Kingdom, many of them already British citizens, and are working in a variety of sectors such as information technology, engineering, aviation, education, health care, and hospitality.

An estimated 19,000 health care professionals of Philippine heritage are working in the National Health Service. About 13,000 are nurses.

Prince Charles added that the UK is "more fortunate than we perhaps realize" to have thousands of Filipino nurses and healthcare workers serving the nation.

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.

Covid-19 continues to claim the lives of Filipino caregivers

 

Artwork/painting by Iris Boncales-Strauss for @Kanlungan2

With more people getting the coronavirus vaccine and states and cities loosening the health restrictions, people are forgetting that COVID-19 is still claiming lives. It is a mistake to think that the pandemic is over.

As documented by "Lost in the Frontlines," the joint project by The Guardian and Kaiser Permanente, health care workers of Filipino descent are bearing a disproportionate number of deaths due to the coronavirus.

Six health care professionals of Filipino descent who have been added in the first week of April to the coronavirus death toll recorded by Kanlungan.net, the website documenting and honoring Filipino health care workers who have died because of COVID-19.

A report by National Nurses United, the largest nurses' union in the U.S., says that about a third of the nurse deaths in the Unite States are Filipino American nurses.

Their names sound oh, so familiar: Lourdes Pizarro, Melina Lopez, Andrey Caloza, Jesusa Ante, Emma Reyes, Victor Cabrera. They join the scores of other names: Rosary Celaya Castro-Ortega, Milagros Abellera, Debbie Accad, Nick Baltazar and scores of others.

Many of them have Latino-sounding names, but Filipinos know which ones are their fellow kababayan.

It is acknowledged that because of historical consequences, the Philippines is a huge source of health care professionals for the world.

One may argue for and against and whether it was good or bad for the Philippines about the reasons why the country provides so many nurses, doctors and other heath care workers, but one cannot argue their willingness to serve in the medical field and the sacrifices made by the health caregivers from the Philippines.

Let's not forget that they are first and foremost, human beings, not just a statistic or a percentage. 

When this pandemic is beaten, months, maybe years away, let's not let the world forget those who answered the call to care and paid the ultimate sacrifice in 2020-2021.

They are our our mothers and fathers, ninongs and ninangs, kuyas and ates. They are nurses, doctors, nursing assistants, environmental cleaners, dieticians, medical assistants, EMTs, patient transporters, caregivers to the elderly, and too often, the last person our loved ones see before passing away.

EDITOR'S NOTE; Views From the Edge is news laced with opinion. Readers are encouraged to seek multiple news sources to form their own opinion.

Guardian, Kaiser team up to count and profile health care worker deaths due to Covid

"Lost on the Frontline" is the first attempt to account for the U.S. deaths of health care workers.

A new report confirms what the AAPI community has been saying for almost a year. Of the 3,600 known deaths of healthcare workers in the United States, a disproportionate number of Asian American and Black frontliners.

The report found "more than a third of the healthcare workers who died were born outside the United States. Those from the Philippines accounted for a disproportionate number of deaths.”

The report, Lost on the Frontline, is the result of a 12-month joint investigation by Kaiser Health News and The Guardian.

“We rightfully refer to these people without hyperbole – that they are true heroes and heroines,” said Dr Anthony Fauci in an exclusive interview with the Guardian and KHN. The Covid deaths of so many health workers are “a reflection of what healthcare workers have done historically, putting themselves in harm’s way, by living up to the oath they take when they become physicians and nurses,” he said.

Key findings of the report, include:

• More than half of those who died were younger than 60. In the general population, the median age of death from Covid-19 is 78. Yet among healthcare workers in our database, it is only 59.

• More than a third of the healthcare workers who died were born outside the United States. Those from the Philippines accounted for a disproportionate number of deaths.

• Nurses and support staff died in far higher numbers than physicians.

• Twice as many workers died in nursing homes as hospitals. Only 30% of deaths were among hospital workers, and relatively few were employed by well-funded academic medical centers. The rest worked in less-prestigious residential facilities, outpatient clinics, hospices and prisons, among other places.

CALLS MOUNT FOR NAT'L TRACKING DATA

The Kaiser and The Guardian report is the first attempt at a comprehensive accounting of U.S. health care workers’ deaths. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted only 368 COVID deaths among health care workers, a vast undercount. The CDC talley is just a number and doesn't identify individuals.

Health policy experts and union leaders are pressing the White House to move quickly to fill the gaping hole left by the Trump administration through its failure to create an accurate count of Covid deaths among frontline staff. The absence of reliable federal data exacerbated critical problems such as shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) that left many workers exposed, with fatal results.

In the absence of federal action, "Lost on the Frontline" has compiled the most comprehensive account of healthcare worker deaths in the nation. It has recorded 3,607 lost lives in the first year of the pandemic, with nurses, healthcare support staff and doctors, as well as workers under 60 and people of color affected in tragically high numbers.

The Guardian and KHN are building an interactive, public-facing database that will also track factors such as race and ethnicity, age, profession, location and whether the workers had adequate access to protective gear. The database — to be released this summer — will offer insight into the workings and failings of the U.S. health care system during the pandemic.

Filipino American RN, Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, a president of National Nurses United, the largest body of registered nurses in the US, said it was unconscionable how many healthcare workers have died from Covid. The KHN/Guardian interactive found that almost a third of those who died were nurses – the largest single occupation followed by support staff (20%) and physicians (17%).

Triunfo-Cortez said the death toll was an unacceptable tragedy aggravated by the lack of federal data which made identifying problem areas more difficult. “We as nurses do not deserve this – we signed up to take care of patients, we did not sign up to die,” she said.

The lack of federal intelligence on deaths among frontline healthcare workers was one of the running failures of the Trump administration’s botched response to the crisis. The main health protection agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, does curate some information but has itself acknowledged that its own record of 1,527 health worker fatalities – more than 2,000 fewer than the joint Guardian/KHN tally – is an undercount based on limitations in its data collection.

Earlier limited attempts by nurses' organizations like National Nurses United have counted the number of registered nurses only; and a dedicated team of volunteers have launched Kanlungan, a website tallying deaths of Filipino health care workers around the world.

“We certainly want to find an accurate count of the people who die,” said Fauci, without noting when the government should undertake such an effort. “Certainly, that’s something I think would fall under the auspices of the federal government.”

SHORTAGE OF PPE HELPED BOOST COVID INFECTIONS

Overall, healthcare workers were revealed to be singularly at risk from the pandemic. Some studies have shown that they were more than three times as likely to contract Covid as the general population.

“During the critical times when there were shortages was when people had to use whatever was available to them,” said Fauci. “I’m sure that increased the risk of getting infected among healthcare providers.”

Shortages were compounded by the federal government’s failure to maintain a national stockpile of personal protective equipment, and the Trump administration’s refusal to order more domestic manufacturing of PPE. That left health workers to use trash bags as gowns, to reuse N95s for weeks, and at times go totally without gloves.

"LOST ON THE FRONTLINES"

EXPLORE the interactive data base.

READ the first 100 profiles here.

SHARE the story of a health care worker

UPDATES to 'Lost on the Frontlines' 

The shortages led to health worker protests, who said working amid the pandemic without equipment left them like “sheep going to slaughter”. Nina Forbes, a nurse at an assisted living facility, was forced to wear a trashbag at times, according to her daughter, and later died. A year into the pandemic, gowns and gloves remain in short supply, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Emergency medical technicians raced by ambulance to help. Others did the cleanup, maintenance, security or transportation jobs needed to keep operations running smoothly.

The workers profiled by the project undertook their work with passion and dedication. They were also beloved spouses, parents, friends, military veterans, immigrants and community activists.

None started 2020 knowing that simply showing up to work would expose them to a virus that would kill them.

Los ANgeles Asian Americans join coalition's call for a 4-week lockdown against COVID-19

SCREEN CAPTURE / KTLA

The COVID ward of a Los Angeles hospital.

About two people an hour are dying from the coronavirus in Los Angeles County, according to media reports. There are zero ICU beds available in Southern California.

A coalition of labor, health experts and community organizations is demanding that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors urgently enact a "circuit breaker" — a strict 4-week lockdown in January to bring the virus under control.

“Hospitals across LA County are bringing in mobile morgues because they know what's coming unless we act decisively," said Dr. Sue Chang, a pathologist with the City of Hope. "As a physician, my priority is saving lives and keeping people healthy. I have done all that I can. I'm looking at the Board is Supervisors and asking if they have done all that they can, or if they plan to continue making the false choice between saving lives and saving jobs.”

Even though there is hope that the new vaccines will help stem the tide of COVID-19 cases sweeping across the nation that has seen an excess of 310,000 deaths and 317,000 million infections, (as of Dec. 17) there is still a need to practice safety measures to halt its spread.

Across the county, there have been 566,005 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 8,568 deaths, both numbers which are continually rising.

At a press briefing Wednesday, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said there were 4,656 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 21% of whom were in the ICU. On average, she said, every hour two people in LA. County are dying from the COVID-19.

“We’re experiencing an explosive and very deadly surge,” Ferrer said. “These are extraordinary, extraordinary numbers and they represent transmission that continues to be out of control.”

In a letter to the Board, the coalition called for "bold action and leadership" to institute a "circuit breaker" in L.A. County in order to lower cases to relieve the pressure on hospitals and healthcare workers, allow state and local health agencies to strengthen the testing and tracing system, and allow the system to work better to prevent future surges in viral transmission. The circuit-breaker, the coalition explained, is a limited-time measure that includes curfews and the closure of all nonessential businesses with safety nets in place for businesses to stay closed and workers to stay safe at home.

The victims of the deadly virus are overwhelmingly essential workers, poor people, and people of color. Asian Americans who become infected with COVID-19 are over four times as likely to die compared to other Angelenos, cites the letter. Latinos in Los Angeles are dying of COVID-19 at twice the rate of white people. One in three Black Americans personally know someone who has died of COVID-19.  Residents of high poverty areas are dying at nearly twice the rate of wealthier residents. 

“As the lead team of Kanlungan.net, a digital memorial for healthcare workers of Philippine ancestry who continue to perish from the virus, we know full well the relentless loss and grief roiling through our families and communities," added Ninotchka Rosca, AF3IRM and Kanlungan.net. 

"We are offended by the half-hearted “'lockdowns' which, without adequate financial support, make staying at home a matter of privilege rather than a pandemic necessity. We call for a genuine lockdown now,” said Rosca. 

The first known death from COVID-19 in L.A. County was a Filipino and surveys by the National Nurses Union has found that a third of healthcare workers who have died from the virus are of Filipino descent.

With LA County contributing over $710 billion GDP to the U.S. economy, the county has the financial power to provide the necessary safety nets to businesses, workers, and families directly impacted by closures, cite's the coalition's letter. The coalition is also pushing the Board of Supervisors to demand urgent state and federal funds for safety nets to allow businesses to stay closed and workers to stay safe at home.

Los Angeles County is the largest governmental body in California — and is also leading the state in cases and deaths. The case rate in Los Angeles is nearly four times that of San Francisco’s. This shows clearly that this is not just a failure of leadership at the federal level, as our local leaders like to claim.

It is just not Los Angeles being impacted by the virus. With the largest population in the nation, the state also has the most COVID-19 cases and number of deaths caused by the coronavirus. Except for the rural parts of Northern California, available ICU beds are below 15% in most of the state. In some, such as Marin County, there are zero beds available. 

As the coronavirus made its way to the U.S. earlier this year, it looked as though California was going to be spared the epidemic that was devastating the Eastern Seaboard -- New York, in particular -- because California was the first state to implement stay-at-home and social distancing measures. But when the weather warmed, and residents weary from the safety measures, Southern Californians were the first to hit the beaches, the restrictions were loosened. Under pressure from businesses, Newsome complied. The state never recovered.

"This pandemic is disproportionately taking the lives of those in our Black, Latino, Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities – many of whom are essential workers in our hospitals,” said Ninez Ponce, a Filipino American professor with the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

“We have reached a crossroads where only decisive measures can prevent our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. A time-limited ‘circuit breaker’ can reverse the tide of the epidemic, bring the number of cases down by breaking the chain of infection, and reduce pressure on our healthcare system," said Ponce.