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.
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.
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
Hi, Theresa - hope you are doing better each day! I do not have anything to add to the very good comments already expressed here, but always find your columns thought-provoking and spot on. All of us in health care need to take better care of ourselves and our colleagues as well as our patients! I am watching MSNBC this morning and they have just interviewed Dr. Uche Blackstock, whose new book LEGACY discusses the history of the effects of race on health care. I think the book only came out within the past couple of weeks and so I thought I'd drop you a note about it. It sounds eye-opening and just like something you might like to review. Take care of yourself!
No wonder we are all stressed and unhappy (for corporate greed perhaps). Explains the epidemic of mental health issues and the consequences-- such as gun violence, suicides and extremism.--and as well a cycle of more illness from people working while ill. Is what this my grandfathers envisioned for us when they liberated Europe? Liberal snowflake rant concluded for now.