In the lobby of The Mount Sinai Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side (pictured above), officials are building additional rooms to handle an overflow of COVID-19 patients.
One nurse rides the subway each day wondering if she’ll have the proper protective equipment for her 12-hour shift, while another worries about a shortage of hydrogen peroxide wipes.
Kongregate free online game Night Shift - This game takes place in a hotel that has four floors and rooms on each floor. You’ll be helpi. Play Night Shift. The life of night shift nurses is different from day shift nurses. The transition to the night shift schedule is a major adjustment both on work and personal lifestyle aspects. To help you cope with these changes, here’s a complete guide in what to expect and how to survive night shift duty. My biggest suggestion for you for starting night shift is to make sure you’re getting good sleep on the days you’re not working, going to bed at 10:00, whatever, wake up at 6:00 or 7:00, and then on the days that you’re working to definitely take a nap during the day.
A nurse is suing Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, N.J., claiming she was retaliated against after reporting that some of her colleagues working the night shift gave Benadryl to patients to.
Emergency room nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side – one of the best hospitals in the country – say they are facing a multitude of challenges as they battle COVID-19 on the front lines that are putting their own health at great risk.
The regular exposure to danger should earn them 'hazard pay,' but none are receiving it, they said.
In stark contrast, out-of-state nurses called in to assist Mount Sinai staff are making an extra $2,000 to $5,000 a week – with many of them receiving additional accommodations, like lodging and transportation – according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.
'I absolutely signed up to take care of the sick and dying – there’s nothing else I’d rather do – but it’s frustrating to be treated this way in a time of crisis and when we have inadequate protection,' said one Mount Sinai nurse.
'It is unfair to all of us,' said another, adding that a petition may be underway demanding additional pay until the risk of infection from supply shortages is greatly reduced.
'Having to pay for an Uber every day, to and from work, is not feasible,' the nurse said. 'I love our doctors and the directors of our department but everyone on the front lines deserves better.'
All of the nurses interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
It’s unclear if an outside staffing agency or another entity is paying the out-of-state nurses. A spokeswoman for Mount Sinai did not immediately return a phone call and email from Fox News on Friday seeking comment.
Hazard pay is defined by the U.S. Department of Labor as additional pay for performing hazardous duty or work involving physical hardship. 'Work duty that causes extreme physical discomfort and distress which is not adequately alleviated by protective devices is deemed to impose a physical hardship,' according to the department’s website.
'You can send anything to the Mount Sinai ER – we have seen it all – but this has shaken everyone'
On Wednesday, President Trump said his administration is considering ways to compensate health care workers with additional hazard pay during the pandemic, though no plan has been unveiled yet.
'It’s something we’re discussing in terms of bonus or bonus pay,' Trump said during a press briefing. 'They’re like warriors, they’re like soldiers,' he said of the doctors, nurses and healthcare workers on the front lines of the outbreak.
Like all emergency rooms in COVID-19 hotspots, the emergency room at Mount Sinai's main campus is in dire straits, with a high volume of patients needing intubation and a medical staff that is physically and emotionally fatigued.
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'The volume of patients is rising as is the acuity level,' said one nurse. 'We’re intubating anywhere between 10 and 15 patients a night and we are understaffed.'
'I have a lot of anxiety, and it’s very hard emotionally because when this first started we were told this is just affecting older people – that was the information that was coming out of other countries like Italy,' the nurse added. 'But that is not the case here. We are seeing people in their 30s, 40s and 50s with no other illnesses gasping for air.'
All the nurses interviewed said they only get one N95 respirator mask for their entire 12-hour shift. Face shields must be wiped down and reused, they said.
'PPE [personal protective equipment] is not supposed to be reusable,' said one nurse. 'The odds of us getting sick are so high. We’re probably all going to have it at some point.'
Two nurses spoke of a colleague who is currently sick and in quarantine after treating patients with the novel virus. Another nurse reported that 'multiple nurses and doctors' have fallen sick from COVID-19.
'You can send anything to the Mount Sinai ER – we have seen it all – but this has shaken everyone,' the nurse said.
Fox News’ Chris Ciaccia contributed to this report.
Published 11:38 AM EDT Apr 7, 2020
Nurses in the emergency room at DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital took a stand late Sunday night against what they said are dangerous working conditions that put them and their patients at risk.
Salah Hadwan, a registered nurse in the emergency department at Sinai-Grace, which is in the heart of Detroit, the city hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak in Michigan, said the surge in extremely sick patients coupled with nurses who have quit or been sickened by the virus, has led to a crisis in staffing.
This story was co-published with Bridge Magazine.
The hospital's emergency room managers are requiring those who report to work to manage more than 100 critically ill patients, many of whom are on ventilators and need critical care, he said, adding that ideally, there would be 21 nurses on staff for every shift.
'Tonight, it was the breaking point for us because we cannot take care of your loved ones out here with just six or seven nurses and multiple vents (ventilators), multiple people on drips,' said Hadwan, adding that the patient load has been building for three weeks.
'There would have been nurses that had to watch up to 20 patients at a time, which is not safe,' he said.
The night nurses asked managers to call for extra help to handle the patient load. But when they saw no relief, they staged a protest late Sunday, said Hadwan, 30, who has worked at Sinai-Grace for three years and said he has never seen working conditions like this.
'We decided to sit in our break room until they could pull in more resources to help us out for the night,' he said.
'After four hours, they basically told us there was not going to be any support coming in for the night. And they told us, 'What is your decision?' We told them we were taking a stand, so they basically told us, 'You can leave.' So that meant the day-shift workers had to work the whole night, for 24 hours.'
Hadwan, who also is vice president of the Hamtramck Public Schools Board of Education, posted a Facebook Live video about midnight Monday, showing the group of nurses leaving Sinai-Grace. The nurses said they love their hospital and city, but they could not take those working conditions anymore.
Brian Taylor, a spokesman for the Detroit Medical Center, said high patient volume is driving an increased need for staffing, especially nurses.
'The DMC is using a variety of resources to help to supplement nursing staff including contracting with staffing agencies to secure more nurses and reaching out to colleges and universities to recruit nursing students who are close to graduation to assist in providing care to our patients, in accordance with state guidance,' Taylor said.
“We know this is a very challenging time for caregivers. Our doctors and nurses continue to demonstrate their commitment and dedication to our patients.
'We are disappointed that last night a very small number of nurses at Sinai-Grace Hospital staged a work stoppage in the hospital refusing to care for patients. Despite this, our patients continued to receive the care they needed as other dedicated nurses stepped in to provide care.”
Nurses face long hours, dangerous conditions
Nurses throughout the state are working against increasing anxiety from a continued shortage of personal protective equipment, intimate care with the most contagious patients, and pressure to keep their loved ones safe at home, nurses have told the Free Press and Bridge in recent days.
“When there aren’t enough troops to fight this fight, what do you do? You retreat.” said Nina Bugbee, president of the Teamsters Local 332, which represents radiologists and respiratory therapists at McLaren Flint Hospital.
“These workers who appear to be walking away, aren’t really,” Bugbee said. “This is not something they want to do, but they are saying, ‘This is bigger than what we can handle. You have to give us the weapons to fight this, or we will lose this war.’ ”
Bugbee also represents tens of thousands of health care workers in her role in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, where she serves as director of the health care division.
She said the tension, building for weeks, is near a snapping point at hospitals throughout Michigan and the country.
“In Week 1, we were in shock. In Week 2, we didn’t have (personal protective equipment). In Week 3, we realized the hazards and warnings, and now here in Week 4, the (staffing) ratios are not manageable and they are not safe.”
Nurses have 'a tipping point' where 'the best thing any RN can do for their patients, their families, and their coworkers is to speak out ... rather than remain silent,' Jamie Brown, a critical care nurse at Borgess Hospital and the president of the Michigan Nurses Association, said in a prepared statement.
'Until hospitals start taking the concerns of nurses seriously, it’s only a matter of time before more actions like these (at Sinai Grace) occur,' she said. 'It is absolutely essential that hospitals start working with nurses and stop silencing our voices.'
Hospitals, as well as nurses, are in impossible situations, said Jeff Morawski, a longtime nurse and president of the OPEIU Local 40, which represents nurses at McClaren Macomb Hospital in Mount Clemens.
Hospitals and patients need nurses. And for many nurses, caring for others is threaded through their DNA.
Still, Morawski said, among the ranks of nurses are parents of young children and caregivers to elderly loved ones and spouses to people with underlying conditions that make them more susceptible to the virus.
Those loved ones, too, count on the nurses.
'There is a point in your life and you have to decide that your own life is worth something, and whether it's worth working without protection and putting the people you care for — the patients — in danger and your families — in danger,' Morawski said.
He said McLaren's nurses aren't pushed yet to the point reported by Sinai-Grace's night shift.
Detroit nurse fired after voicing concerns
Kenisa Barkai, 38, of Woodhaven said she was fired March 27 from her nursing job at Sinai-Grace after speaking out about staffing and poor conditions at the hospital.
She said she was in talks to form a union for the nurses before Michigan marked its first known coronavirus case, but the pandemic brought underlying problems that were simmering at the hospital to a full boil.
On March 16-17, the single mother said she was caring for seven patients, including two who had tested positive for COVID-19.
Then, she said, more patients were admitted, increasing her workload.
“I voiced my concern loud and clear that day, like this is ridiculous,” she said. “… I can't be 100 places at one time. I was already overwhelmed and overworked. You know, we don't get to take breaks. We don't get to go to the bathroom. And with COVID patients, it's not just like, you're able to go in and out of the room — you have to take a lot of steps to protect yourself, right?”
Barkai said she repeatedly raised concerns about conditions and indicated plans to contact authorities. She posted a Facebook video, showing her gown and mask, which was then featured by WDIV-TV (Channel 4). The local news station interviewed her about conditions at Sinai-Grace.
The following week, she lost her job. The hospital system cited a violation of its social media policy, according to a termination document provided to the Free Press and Bridge Magazine by Barkai.
Taylor, the spokesman for Sinai-Grace, said he could not discuss the personnel matter.
“This is the most important time for nurses, you know, to actually have a sense of maybe, finally, like how important we are in ... health care and how important we are with patient care and patient safety,” Barkai said. “… When you go to war, you know, you're working right alongside with your coworkers to fight this battle. I am being sidelined right now.”
Hadwan said the pressure for the night nurses just got to be too much on Sunday.
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'The anxiety, the mental stress that it's put on everybody, it's rough,' Hadwan said. 'We love going to work there. We all love working with each other. We do everything to support each other, but we honestly get off work, and we can't go to sleep just thinking about having to go back and having to deal with the same conditions over and over again.
'We try our best, but honestly, it's impossible to give them the care they deserve with the amount of staff we have.'
Hadwan described an emergency department with patients filling the hallways, and nurses who wear the same mask over multiple 12-hour shifts. 'The patients deserve to be in a room. They deserve to be monitored correctly,' he said.
'We've had a lot of great nurses resign. We've had a few people call in because they are mentally exhausted. ... It's gotten to the point where it's hard to keep the staff they want to be there, but it's unsafe.'
Hadwan was scheduled to report to work again Monday night.
'They didn't take our badges,' he said. 'We all are scheduled to go back in tonight. We all plan to go in tonight, and see what happens from there. We don't quit. We don't quit, you know.'
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He hopes people who hear about the situation will understand that COVID-19 is not a hoax or a scam, and that it is killing people.
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'People are dying in large amounts. Please stay home, please. If everybody stayed home for two weeks, you know we could be saving each other just by doing that. We have to take it seriously,' Hadwan said.
'If only they could see what we see. There's no words to describe it.'
Get involved: The Detroit Free Press and Bridge Magazine are teaming up to report on Michigan hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic. If you work in a Michigan hospital, we would love to hear from you. You can contact Kristen Jordan Shamus at [email protected] or Robin Erb at [email protected].
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