What the Nurses See(wsj.com)
wsj.com
What the Nurses See
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-nurses-see-bronx-hospital-reels-as-coronavirus-swamps-new-york-11585702641
47 comments
Right now doctors and nurses are being fired by their hospitals for speaking publicly about lack of PPE. You would think that whistle-blower protection, freedom of speech, or occupational safety laws would prevent this from happening. But now that we need medical staff more than ever, hospitals are firing them for alerting the public. Is there anything that can be done about this?
For employees in California the Schoech law firm will provide free initial consultations and potentially take cases on a contingency basis. I can recommend them as a previous client on an unrelated matter.
https://norcallawfirm.com/2020/03/31/essential-employees-hav...
https://norcallawfirm.com/2020/03/31/essential-employees-hav...
Do you have any source for that? It sounds insane.
Hospitals need all the workforce they can get. No matter what they do now, during the pandemic, there will be no shortage of patients. And I suppose it is in their best financial interest to treat as many as possible, and it means a lot of personnel.
Having it the other around makes a lot more sense: doctor doesn't feel safe because of a lack of PPE, refuses to work, gets fired, complains about it. If that's the situation, it is not about whistle-blowing, it is about the right to stop working if the conditions aren't safe. Both are (or should be) basic workers rights, but these are very different things.
Hospitals need all the workforce they can get. No matter what they do now, during the pandemic, there will be no shortage of patients. And I suppose it is in their best financial interest to treat as many as possible, and it means a lot of personnel.
Having it the other around makes a lot more sense: doctor doesn't feel safe because of a lack of PPE, refuses to work, gets fired, complains about it. If that's the situation, it is not about whistle-blowing, it is about the right to stop working if the conditions aren't safe. Both are (or should be) basic workers rights, but these are very different things.
I read about it here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/hospitals...
The relevant quote: "Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing. In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization."
The relevant quote: "Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing. In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization."
If this is true, it's absolutely insane! There's a global pandemic, medical staff is overwhelmed psychically and mentally. It seems there is no justice for them. They should be praised and helped by authorities, understood by all people. Yet, I'm reading about doctors and nurses being fired for speaking out their safety concerns.
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No. The regulators aren't going to do anything about a hospital that doesn't have enough staff these days. There's no downside for a hospital to fire someone for speaking up, but letting them get away with speaking up is asking for malpractice suits.
You would think that whistle-blower protection, freedom of speech, or occupational safety laws would prevent this from happening.
Just as a stop sign doesn't physically make your car stop at an intersection, a law won't prevent someone from firing someone else illegally. A fired employee can bring bring a wrongful termination suit, but the recently fired rarely have the means to see these through, even in the best of times. Employers know this.
Just as a stop sign doesn't physically make your car stop at an intersection, a law won't prevent someone from firing someone else illegally. A fired employee can bring bring a wrongful termination suit, but the recently fired rarely have the means to see these through, even in the best of times. Employers know this.
Does this qualify as "wrongful termination"? Is it actually illegal for hospitals to fire medical staff for publicly voicing concerns about lack of PPE? That is what I am wondering.
Wrongful morally, or legally? A lot of people seem to believe that if something is legal, it is okay
> freedom of speech
Applies only to the government. Your employer can restrict your speech -- and pretty much any aspect of your private life -- however they wish.
Applies only to the government. Your employer can restrict your speech -- and pretty much any aspect of your private life -- however they wish.
This is entirely not true when discussing the conditions of work: see the National Labor Relations Act. Nor is it strictly true for speech that takes place outside the workplace.
> This is entirely not true when discussing the conditions of work: see the National Labor Relations Act.
The NLRA is pretty much toothless nowadays.
https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-firings-were-about-unionizing...
https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/google-fired-us-for-organi...
> Nor is it strictly true for speech that takes place outside the workplace.
You are nominally correct. However, if I am your employer and I want to fire you I can almost certainly come up with some legitimate reason to put on the record. Your only recourse will be to file a wrongful termination suit and try to prove that the real reason I fired you was something other than what I said it was. Good luck with that.
Also, if you're in an at-will state, I don't even have to come up with an excuse. If I want you gone, you're gone.
The NLRA is pretty much toothless nowadays.
https://jalopnik.com/the-tesla-firings-were-about-unionizing...
https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/google-fired-us-for-organi...
> Nor is it strictly true for speech that takes place outside the workplace.
You are nominally correct. However, if I am your employer and I want to fire you I can almost certainly come up with some legitimate reason to put on the record. Your only recourse will be to file a wrongful termination suit and try to prove that the real reason I fired you was something other than what I said it was. Good luck with that.
Also, if you're in an at-will state, I don't even have to come up with an excuse. If I want you gone, you're gone.
Do you have a source on this? I couldn't find anything on google
Should understand why the hospitals are worried about this kind of comments.
Are they afraid of lawsuits? These kind of statements could look bad in the court. You go to hospital for some standard procedure, then get covid, then sue the hospital for not taking proper precautions.
Are they afraid of lawsuits? These kind of statements could look bad in the court. You go to hospital for some standard procedure, then get covid, then sue the hospital for not taking proper precautions.
There is a story going around blaming the Chinese government for concealing numbers, but in the West private industry is stepping up to the job of concealing equipment shortages.
source? do the nurses unions protect this?
BTW: The WSJ is running a "2 Months for $1/month, cancel anytime offer". With all the news happening, it's worth to pay the $1 for two months, and set a reminder in your calendar for May 31st to cancel the subscription so you don't get billed the normal rate on June 1st.
PSA, to cancel you do have to call during business hours and argue with a sales person for a few minutes.
Good quality news though.
Good quality news though.
Not in California!
Something that this article doesn't seem to completely answer is, How much of this is the incompetence of the Montefiore system and how much was inevitable? or maybe, Is Montefiore different?
I sure hope that their irresponsible handling of the Feb 3rd case (and subsequent cases) is an exception to what hospitals have been doing. Yes, people weren't generally as aware of the disease on Feb 3rd, but healthcare workers definitely should have been (and from what I've seen quite a few were).
I feel like a lot of the variation in covid-19 outcomes is going to come from the competence of hospital administration.
I sure hope that their irresponsible handling of the Feb 3rd case (and subsequent cases) is an exception to what hospitals have been doing. Yes, people weren't generally as aware of the disease on Feb 3rd, but healthcare workers definitely should have been (and from what I've seen quite a few were).
I feel like a lot of the variation in covid-19 outcomes is going to come from the competence of hospital administration.
Interview with an ER doctor in New Jersey about his experience with COVID19 over the past month:
https://crooked.com/podcast/emergency-room-a-dispatch-from-t...
The interview starts at 6 minutes if you want to skip over the intro. Alternate link:
https://overcast.fm/+UT25k518U/06:08
https://crooked.com/podcast/emergency-room-a-dispatch-from-t...
The interview starts at 6 minutes if you want to skip over the intro. Alternate link:
https://overcast.fm/+UT25k518U/06:08
What can tech do to help healthcare workers monitor their patients with minimal interaction? They are disproportionately affected and can even become virus vectors for spread.
Technology for remote monitoring of patient vital signs and medical device status is already widely deployed. Most wards in modern hospitals feed all that data to a central station so that a single nurse can monitor multiple patients simultaneously. However healthcare providers still have to directly touch patients several times per day for cleaning and treatment, especially in the ICU.
(I wrote the below before I realized that you said 'monitor with minimal interaction', but I'll post the comment anyway.)
There's this for 3D printing protective visors:
https://3dverkstan.se/protective-visor/
They print their own visors in Stockholm and distribute them to hospitals. They also act as a hub for amateurs that can help print, and companies with 3D printers with spare capacity, so that the hospitals have a single point of contact. I don't have any more details than what's said on the page.
There's this for 3D printing protective visors:
https://3dverkstan.se/protective-visor/
They print their own visors in Stockholm and distribute them to hospitals. They also act as a hub for amateurs that can help print, and companies with 3D printers with spare capacity, so that the hospitals have a single point of contact. I don't have any more details than what's said on the page.
you could post this to reddit.com/r/covidprojects
So if we have to decide who gets PPE is it the nurses and healthcare workers or the Amazon workers.
Sure we can and should ramp up production but that takes time and effort. So who gets it in the meantime?
Sure we can and should ramp up production but that takes time and effort. So who gets it in the meantime?
Wow that’s heart breaking. Stay safe everyone
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If we can't do better here most everything else is meaningless. This is not a proper response to this crisis for the greatest country in the world.
“the greatest country in the world.”
I think more precise would be to say “the country that thinks of itself as the greatest country in the world”.
I think more precise would be to say “the country that thinks of itself as the greatest country in the world”.
As someone said, we have the World Series but don't invite any other countries.
The 30 teams in MLB are by far the best in the world, and have many players from every country where baseball is popular.
If the English Premier League were so dominant that it were nearly impossible for any team from any other league to compete with them, it wouldn't really bother me if they called their winner the World Champion soccer club.
If the English Premier League were so dominant that it were nearly impossible for any team from any other league to compete with them, it wouldn't really bother me if they called their winner the World Champion soccer club.
No doubt, but it seems like it'd be more sporting to allow the best non-US team to compete in the playoffs, if only as a friendly gesture.
We invite Canada every once in a while. And, man, I still think of that Joe Carter home run every time I see a Blue Jays logo.
Many Americans probably don't consider Canada as an "other country". :-)
Heck, they don't even have their own country code for dialing...
Heck, they don't even have their own country code for dialing...
The US is objectively not the greatest country in the world. We are at a very high level of development on some metrics, and a medium-to-high level on others, but certainly not uniformly #1.
There is and can’t be a “greatest” country. That depends on individual preferences.
Seems like people took "greatest country in the world" a little more seriously than was intended...
I’m seeing quotes like this regularly in the “interviews with nurses” genre of reporting:
”Many nurses and doctors have symptoms, like dry coughs, but are being denied tests and remain working, Ms. Norstein and other Montefiore health-care workers said colleagues have told them.”
This isn’t even second-hand information - it’s third-hand, and it’s irresponsible journalism. If the reporter couldn’t directly confirm the rumors, they could just say “there are rumors that...”
But then, this is buried in the article:
” One patient with confirmed coronavirus stayed in the Moses ER for over 14 hours and used the same bathroom as other patients, Mr. Mathew wrote in a March 14 email to the hospital epidemiologist and an environmental health and safety director. He said he received no response.”
That is just incompetence, and it’s documented. Why did the reporter bury the lede?
”Many nurses and doctors have symptoms, like dry coughs, but are being denied tests and remain working, Ms. Norstein and other Montefiore health-care workers said colleagues have told them.”
This isn’t even second-hand information - it’s third-hand, and it’s irresponsible journalism. If the reporter couldn’t directly confirm the rumors, they could just say “there are rumors that...”
But then, this is buried in the article:
” One patient with confirmed coronavirus stayed in the Moses ER for over 14 hours and used the same bathroom as other patients, Mr. Mathew wrote in a March 14 email to the hospital epidemiologist and an environmental health and safety director. He said he received no response.”
That is just incompetence, and it’s documented. Why did the reporter bury the lede?
This is what I'm wondering, too. Montefiore botched their first case on Feb 3rd and then weeks later was still ending up with coronavirus patients potentially contaminating others in ways that should not have happened. This is more than just a lack of PPE and other equipment (which could be partly due to hospital administration incompetence too).
Exactly. The documented incompetence is buried, because scared nurse quotes drive more clicks.
If hospitals were/are driving infection counts in the Bronx, that’s a huge story, and deserves more attention.
If hospitals were/are driving infection counts in the Bronx, that’s a huge story, and deserves more attention.