
What the Nurses See - spking
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-nurses-see-bronx-hospital-reels-as-coronavirus-swamps-new-york-11585702641
======
MyHypatia
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?

~~~
GuB-42
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.

~~~
MyHypatia
I read about it here:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/hospitals...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/hospitals-
tell-doctors-they-ll-be-fired-if-they-talk-to-press)

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."

~~~
AS126
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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non-nil
[http://archive.today/A7zA9](http://archive.today/A7zA9)

------
bookofjoe
[https://archive.is/A7zA9](https://archive.is/A7zA9)

~~~
fortran77
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.

~~~
titanomachy
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.

~~~
fortran77
Not in California!

------
James_Henry
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.

------
js2
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...](https://crooked.com/podcast/emergency-room-a-dispatch-from-the-
front-lines/)

The interview starts at 6 minutes if you want to skip over the intro.
Alternate link:

[https://overcast.fm/+UT25k518U/06:08](https://overcast.fm/+UT25k518U/06:08)

------
buboard
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.

~~~
scandinavegan
(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/](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.

~~~
buboard
you could post this to reddit.com/r/covidprojects

------
hpoe
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?

------
Havoc
Wow that’s heart breaking. Stay safe everyone

------
rnernento
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.

~~~
Ididntdothis
“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”.

~~~
downerending
As someone said, we have the World Series but don't invite any other
countries.

~~~
umanwizard
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.

~~~
downerending
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.

------
irq11
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?

~~~
James_Henry
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).

~~~
irq11
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.

