delta1 wrote:danm...any efforts being made by AMA or American Nurses Association, or other professional medical workers organizations to publicly demand PPE in sufficient quantities and in a timely manner so that you can safely do your work?
It's criminal that a country as wealthy and powerful as ours is letting these shortages kill patients and healthcare workers, kinda like sending soldiers to battle without body armor and helmets and weapons
We're not union.
But even the union hospitals are failing to protect their workers. UIC and UOC in Chicago are out of PPE as well. They're offering $5k/week to come work there. But they don't have PPE.
There's nothing we can do but hope and pray. Which has about a 10% healthcare worker mortality rate looking at the data from Europe. And even that is probably doctored, since there's claims that those that got infected didn't get it at work...
Like I said before. I've written my will, I've wrote down account logins for my wife. I hope she and the boy escape unscathed. I do not expect to.
If we had the PPE, I'd be picking up extra shifts to help. But as it is, I'm only working what I'm obligated to work. Not my typical MO. I normally put in at least 12 hours OT a week during the grey months cause there's nothing else to do. Shut in at home, I'm itching to do something but I'm not walking into a battlefield in the nude until I'm forced to.
Like I said before, I am hoping that we can repurpose manufacturing efforts to protect us, WWII style, with PPE and ventilators and other equipment/supplies we need. This is not much different than going to war. This affects everyone. Nobody is getting out unscathed. I just want to live through it, but I don't know that I will.