Confidentiality is the issue and no patient is being compromised. If anything the staff is complaining to get help to protect them and keep their patients as safe as possible. Hospital CEOs and their Vice Presidents and Directors need to be talking to the public. If they did the community would comply better with "Stay at Home" orders and staff needs would move quicker.
The county leaders/freeholders should have a direct link to the hospitals to know their needs and move any government potential to help. State governors should have direct communication with the county managers/leaders/freeholders to know what is happening within their hospitals.
Basically, county leaders should be able to know the capacity of the hospitals, staff and needs. Report that to the governor. County public health departments are going to find themselves ill-prepared to be able to lead in relation to triaging the hospitals. That is an executive role and the government at the county level should be able to ORGANIZE an understanding of the supplies and patient beds.
The best role for the county public health authority is to ask the public to maintain their stay at home status and give DETAILS as to how and where to shop for food. The public health departments are best used to EDUCATE the public in this emergency.
This PANDEMIC is not a reason for a staff's firing. The hospitals need every one of their staff and should be increasing that staff at all levels to provide for the larger demand for hospital services.
The governors are the ones that will have to move heaven and earth to bring the supplies to their states and triage the need based on the supplies coming to them.
The problem with any compliance with the public is due to the ABSTRACT idea they could get sick and die because the authority is AT A DISTANCE from their own lives and they can't relate to anything except politically. Any REAL idea about their own safety has to be local to have real meaning to the people. Local authority is recognizable and immediate. Right? Local authority can call POLICE AND STATE POLICE WITH MASKS TO KEEP THE STREETS AND PARKS EMPTY.
Locally, the homeless are going to have to have a SPACE to remain safe. That can be a shelter or a park with tents, etc. The idea is to extend the INFECTION RATE over time so the hospitals can accommodate all that are ill in a real way. People wandering the streets are a potential vector. The homeless have to be addressed in a way that means they are safe. The homeless are not evil people and can have children. They are people unable to maintain housing in a country where housing, including rent, is unattainable.
During this time, there are efforts for quick tests, vaccines and medicines to help. These efforts take time, unfortunately, but, we don't' need a different monster attacking us by a poorly prepared medical regime and/or vaccines.
ALL AMERICAN HOSPITALS ARE PREPARED WITH QUALIFIED STAFF AND KNOWLEDGE TO HANDLE THIS CRISIS. THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF THE USA. They are moral and value life. Now it is time to be the people we know we are and hold on to make a safe path for everyone.
The reason the hospital staff is talking to the public is that they don't believe they are heard and/or cared for by the hospital leadership. There are doctors and nurses among the administration, they need to come out from behind their desks.
This is not a staff issue, it is a leadership issue at all levels.
March 31, 2020
By Olivia Carville, Emma Court and Kristen V. Brown
Hospitals are threatening to fire health-care workers (click here) who publicize their working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic -- and have in some cases followed through.
Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing. In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization....
