(Portland, Ore.) - The Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) recognizes that the current nationwide outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is overwhelming hospitals throughout the country, including here in Oregon.  

Although ONA supports the Governor’s executive order, we are disappointed that state agencies, and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) specifically, were not more proactive in implementing public health interventions to mitigate this emergency.  

The RSV crisis did not happen suddenly. In fact, it has been building over the past weeks and months. Yet we have not seen robust public health interventions that would have mitigated this crisis and prevented more Oregonians from getting sick, including public health campaigns focused on parents and schools asking them to keep children home if they are sick or show signs of illness. Other actions, such as encouraging mask use, handwashing, and practicing social distancing could have helped reduce the impact of this surge in RSV cases.

This dramatic increase in RSV cases comes at a time when Oregon’s hospitals are already facing a nurse staffing crisis due to decades of failures by hospital systems to invest in staff and the additional pressures of the 3-year-long COVID-19 pandemic. Our health care system is already strained to the breaking point. This new crisis will only add to the ongoing nurse staffing crisis.

It is unreasonable to, yet again, expect frontline nurses and other caregivers to respond to this crisis without additional support from hospitals. ONA calls upon all health systems to immediately implement measures to decrease their census, including delaying all elective surgeries. Hospitals must also incentivize nurses who agree to work the extra shifts that are needed to meet this crisis and relieve nurses of all non-nursing duties by providing more support through ancillary and administrative staff. These measures are critical to allow nurses to meet our patients’ needs.  

Given that this is only the beginning of what is likely to be a 12-week-long surge, ONA urges all Oregonians to take all steps necessary to protect themselves, and their children, from exposure to RSV, COVID-19 and the seasonal flu.  

Get your flu shot. Get your COVID-19 booster. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing. Wash your hands. Keep your children home if they are sick.