Los Angeles California.- The National Union of Registered Nurses in the US will carry out a series of protests in various US states. In California, 18 hospitals will be the rallying point to demand job improvements for essential workers amid another COVID-19 crisis.
The actions will take place inside and outside hospitals in states such as California, Florida, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington, DC this Thursday, January 13.
What are nurses asking for on the National Day of Action?
According to the statement from National Nurses United, nurses are calling on the hospital industry to invest in staff safety and demanding that President Biden deliver on his campaign promise to protect nurses and put public health first.
Essential personnel during the pandemic
The protagonism and heroic work of health personnel made headlines and was part of the news in the US during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. However, starting the third year in the midst of the crisis, essential personnel suffer the onslaught of viruses inside and outside their workplaces.
“As we enter the third year of the deadliest pandemic of our lives, nurses rage to see that, for our government and our employers, it is regarding what is good for business, not what is good for public health, ”said NNU President Zenei Triunfo-Cortés, a registered nurse.
The omicron variant threatens the health system once more. Now the crisis is exacerbated by contagions among workers, added to the exhaustion of forced labor for the last two years.
According to figures from the nurses union, there are three critical points that affect their daily jobs.
- More than 80% of the union assures that there are not enough personnel
- 68% of staff plan to leave the profession
- Most claim that both the CDC and the federal government have stripped them of protections.
National Nurses United RNs will hold a national day of action to demand that the hospital industry invest in safe staff and to demand that President Biden deliver on his campaign promise to protect nurses and prioritize public health.
The actions will be carried out inside and outside of hospitals in the United States. The facilities listed below are outdoors and therefore the press can attend the actions.
In regarding 18 hospitals in the north of its state, this Thursday the nurses will carry out protests inside and outside the facilities, in support of the mobilization at the national level.
The mobilization is critical amid a new outbreak that is already collapsing the country’s hospitals, to the point of forcing the federal government to deploy military medical personnel to reinforce medical teams.
What would be the consequences of the lack of workers in the hospitals?
If the health personnel continue to lose, the care of patients in emergencies or routine cases will suffer. These would imply that the paramedics would not have the security of transferring their emergencies to the hospitals.
Elective surgeries, consultations, special treatments and even nursing homes or nursing homes, would cut or suspend their operations and services. A complicated panorama for patients with diseases such as cancer, dialysis treatments, transplants, among others.
The Biden administration has already announced that military hospitals and their equipment would reach several US states. However, union representatives in Los Angeles assured that this is a temporary action.
“We need them to stop calling us heroes, we are human and we are getting sick,” Margarita Lechuga, registered nurse, told Univision Los Angeles, emphasizing that today many nurses are afraid of losing their licenses and others work under fear of exposing their families in the midst of the worst contagion crisis.
