Local Health Care Providers Sign Petition Demanding St. Charles Executives Provide PPE, Safe Staffing, Access to COVID-19 Testing and Sick Leave, and Apologize for Incorrectly Blaming Caregivers for Hospital’s COVID-19 Cases
Local nurses delivered a petition to St. Charles Health System executives Nov. 25, calling on executives to provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and oversight, COVID-19 testing, sick leave, and safe staffing for frontline health care workers. In less than 48 hours, the petition was signed by more than 160 Bend-area health care providers. Nurses and health care providers are standing up after St. Charles executives inaccurately and inappropriately accused health care providers of spreading COVID-19 in a recent COVID-19 update email to staff.
“In April, St. Charles leaders plastered the hallways with signs and quotes calling us ‘heroes.’ Now, when staffing levels are low, they are blaming us for bringing COVID-19 to the workplace,” said local nurse Corey Sattler, an ONA bargaining unit leader at St. Charles Bend. “They are using this as an excuse to refuse to provide us clear support, testing, and equipment. We are under tremendous stress every single day. We are reaching levels of burnout which are not only dangerous to us, but to the community we serve. St. Charles’ answer is to blame us, then remove our protections in order to maintain their profits. It’s inexcusable. It’s a slap in the face to each and every nurse risking their lives every day for our patients.”
As COVID-19 cases continue surging in Oregon and across the country, staff at St. Charles are still being asked to reuse single-use masks beyond manufacturers’ safety recommendations, to ‘mask and monitor’ after COVID-19 exposures instead of getting COVID-19 tests and pushing nurses to return from quarantine early.
Frontline health care workers are at a high-risk of contracting coronavirus while caring for sick patients particularly during the surge when treating more patients with fewer staff.
The Oregon Health Authority reports nearly 10 percent of Oregon’s COVID-19 cases are health care workers. Nearly 70 percent of health care workers with COVID-19 work in direct patient care. Yet, last week St. Charles executives emailed caregivers claiming there were no cases of patient to provider transmission and blaming local caregivers for hospital-based COVID-19 cases.
“Caregivers are contracting COVID-19 at work because St. Charles is failing to protect them. Nurses are working on the frontlines of a pandemic. When nurses don’t have proper safety equipment or support; they will get sick,” said ONA spokesperson Kevin Mealy. “St. Charles needs to admit its mistake, and apologize to the frontline nurses and caregivers who are risking their own safety to save lives. Then St. Charles needs to get to work to support nurses by providing the PPE, testing, staffing and sick leave that will help keep them safe so they can continue caring for their community.”
ONA nurses in Bend have been notable leaders at slowing the spread of COVID-19. Local nurses led the successful effort to pause elective surgeries in the spring and donated more than 10,000 free masks to community members this summer and are continuing to care for Central Oregon’s sickest and most vulnerable populations during the current surge.
The Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) represents nearly 1,000 nurses at St. Charles Bend.
