GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST COVID19
Nurses at Bronx hospital protest lack of supplies, protective gear to fight coronavirus
ONLY WORKERS CONTROL OF PRODUCTION CAN DEFEAT COVID-19 
SOCIALISM, SELF MANAGEMENT, COLLECTIVIZATION, SOCIAL PLANNING
By THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
MAR 28, 2020
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A nurse demonstrates along with others outside the emergency entrance to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx on March 28, 2020, where some nurses say they don't have enough personal protective equipment and have forced to reuse theirs to treat coronavirus patients. According to statistics, New York is currently the global epicenter of the virus with more cases than any other location. The United States surpassed China in the number of cases earlier in the week according to Johns Hopkins University which is tracking cases of COVID-19.(Kathy Willens/AP)
Nurses at a Bronx hospital pleaded Saturday for more protective gear while treating coronavirus patients, blasting official claims that there were enough supplies for healthcare workers.

Two nurses at Jacobi Medical Center have now contracted the illness because of a lack of equipment, they said.

“We have a number of workers — two in this hospital, two nurses — fighting for their lives in the ICUs right now,” pediatric nurse Sean Petty said at a news conference outside the hospital Saturday.

Petty and others criticized Mayor de Blasio’s claims that there were enough masks and gowns to protect medical professionals for at least the next week.

A nurse stands outside the emergency entrance to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx borough of New York, Saturday, March 28, 2020, as she demonstrates with members of the New York Nursing Association in support of obtaining an adequate supply of personal protective equipment for nurses coming in contact with coronavirus patients. A member of the New York nursing community died earlier in the week at another New York hospital. The city leads the nation in the number of coronavirus cases. Nurses say they are having to reuse their equipment endangering patients and themselves. (Kathy Willens/AP)

Nurses at Jacobi Medical Center said there are so few supplies that they’ve had to ration the protective gear, forcing them to wear N95 masks longer than they should, or wear surgical masks on top of the N95 masks to preserve them.

“We will not let any health official or government official say that we have enough until every health care worker has an N95 for every time they interact with a COVID-19 patient," Petty said.

Several nurses have fallen ill across New York metropolitan region. Mount Sinai West assistant nursing manager Kious Kelly, 36, died from the disease earlier this week.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city delivered 200,000 N95 masks to hospitals Friday, with 800,000 more to come Saturday along with loads of less-protective surgical masks and other gear.

Jacobi Healthcare Workers Demand More N95 Masks As Supplies Run Low

BY SYDNEY PEREIRA MARCH 29, 2020 

Healthcare staff hold a protest outside of Jacobi on March 28th. ANDY RATTO
PRACTICING SAFE DISTANCE NORMS

Healthcare workers at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx are demanding more personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 outbreak to protect themselves and others from the virus.

Staffers say they are required to use one N95 mask per week due to a nationwide shortage of the specific filtered masks.

"With coronavirus, we're primarily concerned with the degree to which we're infecting our other patients, our other coworkers, and our own families," Sean Petty, a nurse at Jacobi, told Gothamist.

About two dozen healthcare workers protested outside of Jacobi on Saturday, demanding more PPE. Petty said the Trump administration should use the Defense Protection Act to ramp up production of the masks as quickly as possible.

"If in 1940, we could completely restructure the entire country to make weapons to fight in a war, then we could have the ability to restructure a couple factories to double or triple their N95 production," Petty said. "As of last week, that policy became one mask per week for nurses outside of the emergency department. That change is what I think really horrified us."


Last week, a worker at a hospital where nurses were wearing trash bags as protective gowns died of the virus. Ventilators and hospital beds—which New York needs tens of thousands of—are critical, said Petty, but a third component is the workers treating patients. And without enough N95 masks, staffing could become an issue.

"The lack of PPE is working against flattening the curve," he said. "You're setting yourself up for a massive increase in a staffing crisis."

Previously, Petty said masks were to be used once with a patient. Now, staff is instructed to use one per week, and only wear it when performing a procedure that would produce airborne particles from a COVID-19 patient—like intubation or providing oxygen. Staff has been coached on how to wear surgical masks on top of N95s to extend their use.

A spokesperson for NYC Health + Hospitals, which operates Jacobi, said their network of hospitals have adequate supplies, but acknowledged a nationwide shortage.

"We currently have the supplies needed for all of our staff, but are fully cognizant that there is a nationwide shortage of supplies," the hospital system's spokesperson Karla Griffith said. "Because of the national picture, we have taken serious measures to conserve what we do have."

Nurses' safety during the coronavirus response is a "top priority" and all healthcare workers who need PPE are "able to receive what they need," but the city's hospital system is pushing local, state, and federal agencies for more equipment, the statement read.

The hospital system says it is following city and state health department guidelines, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Petty says the CDC guidelines aren't adequate. Under the CDC guidelines, updated February 29th, measures for reusing masks are recommended during N95 shortages.

"This is not just a Jacobi problem and it's not just even a public hospital problem," he said. "This is a nationwide problem that stems from the guidelines that the CDC implemented early on in this crisis."

"To reuse an N95 mask prior to this crisis would have been a fireable offense," Petty said. "This virus is exposing exactly where all the weak points are in our system. We are going to need fundamental and systemic change in the way we do healthcare in this country."

An emergency room doctor at a Mount Sinai hospital says staffers had previously been provided one N95 mask a week, but now switches it out daily and wears a surgical mask on top of it between patients. He cleans his plastic face shield with Clorox wipes. At a press conference on Friday, president of Health + Hospitals Mitchell Katz said that hospitals have enough supplies through April 5th, but said wearing a surgical mask on top of an N95 mask is recommended in light of the "short supply worldwide."