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You are here: Home / Employment / Nursing And The Coronavirus

Nursing And The Coronavirus

March 12, 2020 by LORIE A BROWN, R.N., M.N., J.D. 2 Comments

A nurse working at Kaiser in California took care of a patient who was positive for the coronavirus.  She volunteered to care for this patient because she had training on the recommended protective gear.  Her assumption was that should something happen to her, she would be cared for.

Unfortunately, after a few days passed, the nurse became ill.  She put herself on a 14-day self-quarantine period.  However, she could not get tested to confirm whether she had contracted the coronavirus.  At that time, she was put on some type of list.

The United States has the lowest number of tests conducted for the coronavirus as compared to the rest of the world.  It goes without saying that if we cannot get tested, how do we know who has it and then how can we limit the spread of the coronavirus?

Fortunately, this nurse had the support of her union, National Nurses United, which hosted a press conference on this matter at 11:00 A.M. PDT on March 12, 2020.  You can listen to it here.

What concerns me about this situation is that this nurse took care of a patient with confirmed coronavirus and became ill.  My issue with this nurse who became ill after she cared for the patient is that if it is not proven that she contracted the coronavirus during her treatment of the patient, her employer would have grounds to deny any workers compensation claim she might make.

It is very important that nurses who are exposed to the coronavirus get the proper documentation, so they not only get their time off but also for any medical care co-pays and any other sequelae.

I hope nothing like this happens to you, but it possibly could.  Approximately 65 employees from the nursing home where many of the deaths from coronavirus are now ill but unable to get confirmatory testing.  It’s scary that all these people are getting infected and I am hopeful they can contain the virus.

In the meantime, do whatever you can do to keep yourself healthy including taking vitamin C, exercising, drinking plenty of fluids, get adequate sleep and taking probiotics.

What has your facility done in light of the coronavirus outbreak?  Have any specific precautions been put in place there to protect you?

Please share in the comments below.

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Filed Under: Employment, Newsletter, Workplace Issues Tagged With: Coronavirus, COVID-19, gloves, gowns, Kaiser, masks, National Nurses United, nurses, nursing, patient, Personal Protective Equipment, positive for coronavirus, PPE, Protective Gear, quarantine, tests

Comments

  1. Rebecca Nixon says

    March 13, 2020 at 7:42 am

    I was sent home and they can’t aporove me for testing to rule out the virus. I was told I need to go to a commercial lab but I’m not quite sure why. The hospital was weird on the phone, they said I can’t get any answers there because I am not their current patient so I would need to call the other hospitals. I did that, and they had me call the epidemiologist from the Central Health District who said I do not meet the criteria for testing but they can’t dictate policy at my facility. There is no union…I’m really curioud why it’s ambiguous dealing with this. Before there were algorithms we used an ancient tradition called common sense.

  2. Sherri Capps, RN says

    March 13, 2020 at 10:40 am

    I’m a RN and employed with the Dept. of Health and Human Services in the state of North Carolina. I work for a Centers for Medicare Services [CMS] program for the intellectual disabilities active treatment program. We do recertification surveys and complaint investigations. Part of our survey is the monitoring of Emergency Preparedness-upon entering the facility, we ask what is in place for pandemic emergencies….

    My team and I are home based and travel around the state of NC. As of 3/10/20, our surveys are limited to recertifications (CMS mandated) and immediate jeopardy complaint surveys.

    Thanks so much Lorie Brown for your newsletter and sharing your experiences!

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