Working Sick Does Not Work for Patients or Nurses

Also, City of Asylum Event Feb. 12 at 7pm, in-person and virtual

Hi All,

I’m recovering from a truly terrible bout of Covid and thus this newsletter is short. I’ll write about my Covid experience in the next newsletter. For now, please enjoy my newest column in Cancer Nursing Today on the lack of paid sick leave for nurses and how nurses, and all health care workers, are often expected to work while sick, even though reams of data show how counter-productive and expensive the lack of paid sick leave is for businesses.

If you find this column powerful and important, please share it with a friend or co-worker, slip it anonymously under your manager’s door, or even send it to your hospital’s CEO and members of the board. Speaking up may not bring change, but remaining silent surely will not. We can but try.

This is sick…and funny…and very sad. Research shows that the lack of paid sick leave increases mortality. Think about it: People work through a sickness, get more sick as a result and severely compromise their own health, sometimes irreparably.

Here is the column, from Cancer Nursing Today…

Working Sick Does Not Work

Before COVID-19, there was H1N1, which blew through my household like an ill wind in the winter of 2010, felling all 5 of us, 1 after the other. I missed a whole week of work at the hospital—three 12-hour shifts. When I returned to work, not contagious, but with a hacking cough that could be heard from one end of the ward to the other, my manager officially reprimanded me for exceeding my allowed number of sick days, which was 2 per year. Even though the hospital’s web site clearly stated that staff with the H1N1 virus were not allowed to work. And thus is one of the dirtiest little secrets of health care revealed: hospital administrators want and even expect nurses (and maybe all health care staff) to work when ill.

If I had gone to work with H1N1, I would have put my patients and myself at risk. I worked on a bone-marrow transplant unit, with many patients who were not just immune suppressed, but lacked a functioning immune system as a result of their leukemia treatments. It is not an exaggeration to say I would have endangered those patients if I had shown up for my shifts with a highly contagious respiratory virus. I also would have endangered myself. A few hospital floors below mine, the medical ICU was proning patients with H1N1, trying desperately to keep them alive. Forcing myself to work despite being seriously ill could have led me to have respiratory collapse.

In case you’re wondering how prevalent the problem of working while sick is.

I couldn’t find a date for this chart, but I imagine the data is at least within the last decade or so. Medical is 60%. That is not good news for patients.

Hiawatha Project Presents “In Our Time: Pandemic Stories from the Frontlines” at City of Asylum

February 12 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm EST: live and in-person

I’m so proud to share this upcoming event that is part of the Healthcare and Humanity reading series at City of Asylum. It promises to be an amazing evening of difficult stories, yes, but also connections across time, genres and genders. I’ll be doing a talk back after the performance. Read about the event below, from the City of Asylum website.

The first staged reading performance of an original play by Anya Martin

This special combination reading and performance presents the Hiawatha Project original play “In Our Time: Pandemic Stories from the Frontlines” by Anya Martin. The play is directed by Steven Wilson and produced and presented by Hiawatha Project. 

Inspired by interviews with women ICU physicians on the frontlines of the COVID pandemic, and Ernest Hemingway’s groundbreaking short story collection, “In Our Time: Pandemic Stories from the Frontlines” weaves Hemingway’s In Our Time with first hand narratives to create a moving, poetic account of 2 challenging historical eras echoing with parallel themes of loss, grief and alienation. Theatrically adventurous and surprising, characters and stories layer through time and stage space, as they reach for meaning and connection in the spaces between words and worlds.

Stay well everyone—with hugs,

Theresa

I’m not a huge fan of over-the-counter cold medicines, but I brought out the arsenal for this case of Covid. Plus, salt for gargling with warm salt water, of course.