Nurses and other staff refusing to Treat COVID patients

[Mena2015, BSN]

Are any of you experiencing this issue?  Since the first wave hit, some of the nurses at work have refused to care for COVID patients. Management has allowed this and continues to do so.. My unit, Telemetry, became a makeshift COVID unit, with half available beds allocated to COVID patients. Last night all of the other nurses and techs scheduled to work with me  refused to take COVID patients.  Luckily an ER nurse, and a tech from another unit came to the rescue. However, this is so disheartening to see. Our patient ratio continues to increase -taking 5 patients each at the moment. Phlebotomists refuse to come to the COVID side to draw labs. It´s awful and heartbreaking...

[ChickenHealer]

Something similar is happening in my hospital. Techs and nurses have seen that they are floating to the covid unit and decide to call off. We're a psych hospital, so the "covid unit" is covid positive psych patients who have mild symptoms or are asymptomatic. Staff have refused to be floated to the unit, made it known to management that they will not work on the unit, and do not want to work with those who have worked the unit, and management is complying with their demands. I have a few coworkers who have told me that they purposely failed their fit test to avoid being placed on covid units.

In my opinion it isn't fair to the rest of us- I'm young and healthy, and got mandated to work the covid unit for 5 days in a row. My also young and healthy, single, lives alone coworker refused to work and is excused from doing so. Plus working while understaffed, without services such as phlebotomy, dietary, EVS, security, makes the days a lot more stressful and dangerous.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

It won't be sustainable and personally I would rather care for a known COVID patient with the correct PPE than a patient who might or might not have it and therefore just a surgical mask.

[toomuchbaloney]

I suspect that we are witnessing the breaking point.  That point where normal compassionate and ethical care crashes into masses of unmasked covidiots casually spreading the contagion. 

[Kitiger, RN]

5 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

I suspect that we are witnessing the breaking point.  That point where normal compassionate and ethical care crashes into masses of unmasked covidiots casually spreading the contagion. 

I fear you are right, although instead of "covidiots", I would say, "those who want what they want, and they don't care what anyone else says."

[corn1]

I think something happened during the HIV crisis and some sort of legislation was passed to prevent nurses from declining to care for patients? It's not enforced at my hospital.

[toomuchbaloney]

29 minutes ago, Kitiger said:

I fear you are right, although instead of "covidiots", I would say, "those who want what they want, and they don't care what anyone else says."

OK

I have already breached the breaking point.  My intentional word choices often reflect that reality. 

[Kitiger, RN]

6 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

OK

I have already breached the breaking point.  My intentional word choices often reflect that reality. 

Your word choices are fine.

 

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

On 12/14/2020 at 7:26 AM, Nurse SMS said:

It won't be sustainable and personally I would rather care for a known COVID patient with the correct PPE than a patient who might or might not have it and therefore just a surgical mask.

This. The first time I floated to a COVID unit at the beginning of all of this I was of course nervous but once I got there I was like wow this actually is so much better than the non-COVID unit! You knew every patient is positive, there are stricter rules in place, stricter PPE, better patient ratios, and overall I felt safer.

I do understand that my experience is different in my wonderful pediatric COVID world and things like better patient ratios are not happening in adult COVID world, and I am very thankful for that.

[OUxPhys, BSN, RN]

I used to work the covid floor in the beginning but I got burned out so I volunteered to go to the medical floor and take care of cardiology pts (my background). That was fine until recently where we have had 4 of those pts who were originally negative test positive. The whole staff is now getting swabbed. I often look back and think "Did I make the wrong move by leaving the covid floor where we have PAPRs and know everyone is positive?" However, the covid floor where I work is full and super heavy. Psych, spinal cord, totals. They usually have 3-4 pts for a shift. I don't think I could do that tbh. 

[egg122 NP, MSN, APRN]

I am finding everyone is calling out. It makes me crazy. I saw some of the same people putting the posts of facebook, "I'm a nurse" or "I can't stay home, I'm an essential worker" and  I couldn't fathom the total lack of self awareness.

I also notice management abandoning units or SNFs recently and MDs refusing to round. I sincerely hope that the department of health gets involved but I am sure that nothing will come of it. 

We are definitely at the breaking point in our healthcare system where years of corporate mentality have resulted in inadequate systems and a "me, me, me" mindset.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

1 minute ago, egg122 NP said:

I am finding everyone is calling out. It makes me crazy. I saw some of the same people putting the posts of facebook, "I'm a nurse" or "I can't stay home, I'm an essential worker" and  I couldn't fathom the total lack of self awareness.

I also notice management abandoning units or SNFs recently and I sincerely hope that the department of health gets involved but I am sure that nothing will come of it. 

We are definitely at the breaking point in our healthcare system where years of corporate mentality have resulted in inadequate systems and a "me, me, me" mindset.

Part of me agrees, but part of me has seen what is being asked of us and completely understands that people are just....suffering. Staff is suffering. I don't think its terribly fair to call it selfish 8 months in. We can't magically create more healthcare workers in this short amount of time and it isn't the frontline staff's fault that "Lean" was the goal for the last 15-20 years. People are worn out, mentally and physically. That's not selfishness as much as a systemic issue that needs to be addressed.