Fresno nurses fear infection, say Kaiser Permanente lacks equipment amid COVID-19 pandemic
Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center said they are being forced to deal with the new coronavirus pandemic without the proper equipment or procedures to protect themselves and vulnerable patients.
Nurses with the California Nurses Association union protested outside the north Fresno hospital on Tuesday with their faces covered, holding signs that said “Protect nurses, patients, public health.”
The union said as many as 70 registered nurses in the facility may have been exposed to the virus. At least nine nurses have been infected with COVID-19, the union said, leading to at least three nurses having to be admitted into a hospital and one nurse ending up in critical care.
Hospital officials said 10 nurses have tested positive but only seven were work-related cases.
Kaiser is the “poster child” for following weak pandemic guidelines, according to Rachel Spray, the chief nurse representative at Kaiser Fresno.
“What this experience has taught us is that every patient should be treated as a potential COVID-19 patient,” she said. “And every health care worker must be wearing personal protective equipment that meets airborne precaution standards.”
Officials at the hospital stress they are following proper protocol. Employees at the facility who tested positive for coronavirus are observing guidelines and staying home from the hospital, according to Wade Nogy, senior vice president and area manager Kaiser Permanente Fresno.
He declined to provide details on the employees who were infected, citing privacy concerns.
“The safety of our workforce and patients remains our highest priority,” Nogy said. “We are deeply grateful to our medical teams, staff, and employees who are expertly and compassionately caring for our members, patients, communities and each other.”
Kaiser is working with Fresno County Public Health Department to notify anyone who may have been in contact with infected employees, according to Nogy.
Equipment and procedure
The union says frontline hospital workers are not being given enough personal protective equipment, often called PPE. Nurses have been told to use one N95 respirator mask per shift or longer and will soon be doing the same with their gowns, according to the union.
Nurses not routinely changing masks and attire could lead to a risk of a cross infections, the union said, between patients who tested positive and those who tested negative for coronavirus.
Nurses at Kaiser were exposed in March to a patient who was not immediately tested but was found days later to be infected, according to the union. Not all nurses were notified following the positive test.
Hospital officials pushed back against the testing allegation. Kaiser tested the patient after two days, according to Nogy, and all nurses who came in contact with that patient were notified.
Most nurses wear surgical masks, but those protections have proved to be not enough, the union argues.
Nogy said the hospital is following all the proper guidelines.
“Kaiser Permanente has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus, while protecting other patients, members and employees,” Nogy said.
“These are the same protocols and personal protective equipment being used by other hospitals systems in California and across the nation.”
The union said Kaiser’s standards are too low.
Some of the procedures being used at the hospital during the response to the pandemic would be grounds for discipline under normal circumstances, according to Amy Arlund, a board member of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United.
“What they’re doing goes against everything we’ve learned in nursing about infection control standards,” she said. “And now it’s like they’ve thrown all those standards out the window as if they never existed. It’s beyond me.”
This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 4:41 PM with the headline "Fresno nurses fear infection, say Kaiser Permanente lacks equipment amid COVID-19 pandemic."
