Nurses across the United States are currently on the front lines of trying to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus, but the head of the country's largest union for registered nurses says they don't have the protection necessary for their job.
Two hundred nurses employed by an interstate health system in New York and Connecticut have been out of work since potentially being exposed to coronavirus patients, a report said.
Dr. Robert Golden, chairman of the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority Board, sat in front of a sea of fed-up nurses as he tried to wrap up an agenda item at a monthly board meeting in Madison. “We have gone beyond the allotted time,” he said, prompting shouts from a crowd of hundreds of nurses and their supporters.
Running a fever and suppressing a cough, Renee returned home Monday from the Fort Worth-area hospital where she works. Three days later, still sick, she had not been able to get tested for the new coronavirus she fears she may have contracted.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association is calling on state officials to halt any hospital downsizing and make coronavirus testing available for frontline clinical workers.