Hospital Workers Threatened With ‘Termination’ for Voicing Coronavirus Shortages
By Washington Examiner. Reminiscent of steps taken by the Chinese Communist Party after doctors attempted to warn the world about the coronavirus, some American hospitals are instructing workers to keep quiet about conditions at the facilities or face termination.
“Hospitals are muzzling nurses and other healthcare workers in an attempt to preserve their image,” Ruth Schubert, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Nurses Association, told Bloomberg on Tuesday. “It is outrageous.”
In an email sent to workers at NYU Langone Health on Friday, executive vice president of communications Kathy Lewis said employees cannot speak with the media unless authorized, or else they will be “subject to disciplinary action, including termination.” Jim Mandler, a spokesman for the hospital, followed up by saying the measures follow guidelines already in place that protect the privacy of patients and staff.
The message is similar to those received by healthcare workers in Washington and Illinois, who have been punished for voicing concerns about the lack of protective equipment available to staff.
Lauri Mazurkiewicz, a Chicago nurse who was fired by Northwestern Memorial Hospital after warning colleagues about a lack of protective equipment, is suing the hospital, claiming she was fired for speaking out. (Read more from “Hospital Workers Threatened With ‘Termination’ for Voicing Coronavirus Shortages” HERE)
___________________________________________________
Are Hospitals Seeing a Surge of Coronavirus Patients? Some Officials Aren’t Saying
By NPR. With tests scarce, epidemiologists are looking at hospitalizations as an indicator of how the novel coronavirus is spreading. But in some of the areas of the country worst-hit by COVID-19, states and counties aren’t releasing that data.
The result is an incomplete picture of where the pandemic is surging, even in hotspots such as Washington and California.
“So as long as people aren’t being turned away, we must focus on hospitalizations and ICU cases,” says Steven Goodman, an epidemiologist and Stanford University’s associate dean of Clinical and Translational Research. “The more reliable numbers, aside from the number of deaths, are how many people get sick enough to be in the hospital and in the ICU. That’s what we need to know.” . . ,
Still, other hotspots aren’t releasing numbers at all, either because public health officials are overwhelmed by the crisis and are still compiling the numbers or for reasons they declined to explain, even though they are compiling the numbers internally. (Read more from “Are Hospitals Seeing a Surge of Coronavirus Patients? Some Officials Aren’t Saying” HERE)
Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE
