Will you work during a Pandemic?

Nurses COVID

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  1. Nurses, would you go to work during a Pandemic?

    • 1926
      No
    • 5592
      Yes
    • 1288
      undecided

1,893 members have participated

admin note: we just added a poll to this thread today, april 25, 2008, please take a second and vote in the poll so we can have a graphical representation of the responses. thanks

scenario:

h5n1 (the bird flu) mutates to become efficient at transmitting human to human causing a pandemic, with a case fatality rate of 60% and with 80% of the cases in the 0-40 year old age range.

see:

http://www.wpro.who.int/nr/rdonlyres/fd4ac2fd-b7c8-4a13-a32c-6cf328a0c036/0/s4_1113.jpg

hospitals will be quickly overrun. hospital staff shortages are 50%. the government orders all nurses to work. there is not enough personal protection equipment (n95 masks, gloves, goggles, tamiflu, vax, etc)

home quarantines become common (in the fed plans).

your family is also quarantined in your home. you are running out of food and the government promises you will be "taken care of" if you report to work.

will you go?

I have also had to discuss this with my wife. She agreed that I have an obligation to go to work during a pandemic. If I were not going to be allowed to leave, she'd volunteer to help out. That's the way it should be. To say you won't work is to suggest that maybe you should have picked a different career. You work in public health. To abandon the public in times of the greatest need is admittance that health care is not for you!

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Specializes in Aged care.

I don't think that's a fair assumption to make. Nursing and caring for others IS my passion. But try telling that to my 8 year old son who would be orphaned if anything happened to me. If my circumstances were different, then yes, I would go in a heartbeat.

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, LTC.
I don't think that's a fair assumption to make. Nursing and caring for others IS my passion. But try telling that to my 8 year old son who would be orphaned if anything happened to me. If my circumstances were different, then yes, I would go in a heartbeat.

Exactly. My kids are the reason I won't work. I don't want them growing up in foster care.

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No one does. I'm sure there are many military personnel that wouldn't want their kids to grow up in foster care, either. They don't even have the option to say they won't go where they are ordered so that we have the opportunity to even have this debate.

If and when there is a pandemic - I'll be on point, on my shift. Likely with family members volunteering to pick up where the ball has been dropped by many of my medical peers who have decided that their personal situation is more important than the welfare of the public.

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Specializes in acute care and geriatric.
If I could go back to the ER nothing would stop me not even a pandemic without PPE. I worked so long without it that I found PPE stuff annoying :smackingfanyway - gloves and a gown, I was happy.:yeah:

Well the rest of us need the gloves and gown and mask, if not just to protect ourselves, but to protect the other patients as well. PPE stuff may be annoying, but you get used to it and I wouldn't allow my nurses to work without it.

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Specializes in ER - trauma/cardiac/burns. IV start spec.

Wow gooey RN, Tell that to the children of 53000 men and women that died in Vietnam!:scrying:

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, LTC.
Wow gooey RN, Tell that to the children of 53000 men and women that died in Vietnam!:scrying:

yes, Vietnam was sad for many. Thankfully, most who voluntarily join the military now have a support system of people/person able to care for their kids while they are away, or if they were to die. I have no family/friends willing to care for mine if I die. It would mean an automatic trip to foster care for my kids. There is no grandmother or friend or uncle or whoever that would raise them. Surely, people don't join the military with no support for their kids and just turn them over to the state, or do they? :eek: When I became a nurse, maybe I wrongly assumed I can have a family AND be a nurse. I don't remember signing away my life, or signing a contract or anything that I was owned for X number of years. If that is the case, that I am owned, I will happily give my license back and do something else. Yes, I will work during a pandemic with proper PPE, but not without which is what the question was. I do need to make sure my kids have someone to raise them. ,

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Wow, you all are being pretty harsh with people. This career is just that for many people, a career. Not a calling, or a passion. That doesn't make them bad nurses. Just as not volunteering to go in in the circumstances put forth in the original post doesn't make them bad nurses, or "admitting that healthcare is not for them". The original post set forth circumstances that ould be construed as a death sentence. (very high mortality rate, no cure, no vaccine, no PPE) Those that would refuse have every right to-even those going in to combat have gear to try and stave off injury(ineffective as it is, bless all those defending our country). Is it too much to ask that they at least give me equipment (PPE)to TRY to stave off infection? I don't think it is..

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, LTC.
Wow, you all are being pretty harsh with people. This career is just that for many people, a career. Not a calling, or a passion. That doesn't make them bad nurses. Just as not volunteering to go in in the circumstances put forth in the original post doesn't make them bad nurses, or "admitting that healthcare is not for them". The original post set forth circumstances that ould be construed as a death sentence. (very high mortality rate, no cure, no vaccine, no PPE) Those that would refuse have every right to-even those going in to combat have gear to try and stave off injury(ineffective as it is, bless all those defending our country). Is it too much to ask that they at least give me equipment (PPE)to TRY to stave off infection? I don't think it is..

:yeahthat:

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Specializes in ER and Home Health.
Wow gooey RN, Tell that to the children of 53000 men and women that died in Vietnam!:scrying:

My dad was there. But you only talk about the 53,000 Americans that died there. Not the Russians, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the French, the Cambodians and everyone else, I wonder what that totals to. But That was not a Pandemic. If there was a disease that deadly, that pervasive,that infectious as is being discussed. Then whether you went to work or not you would be highly at risk regardless of whether you went to work or stayed at home. We truly can not imagine or picture anything that terrible in our minds. Maybe that is a blessing in itself.

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry, neuro,research.

i work at a level one in a large city, a gateway city to latin america. i take my job very seriously. i fought hard to become a nurse and i am proud to be one. however, i am in fertility treatments trying to have a baby and no matter what my heart may say, i will not do anything to endanger my chances to be a mom. my employer may not support this and that will be unfortunate. but i will not cross that bridge till i get to it.:heartbeat

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Specializes in Too many to list.
i work at a level one in a large city, a gateway city to latin america. i take my job very seriously. i fought hard to become a nurse and i am proud to be one. however, i am in fertility treatments trying to have a baby and no matter what my heart may say, i will not do anything to endanger my chances to be a mom. my employer may not support this and that will be unfortunate. but i will not cross that bridge till i get to it.:heartbeat

you get that pregnancy is a significant risk factor for a bad outcome.

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