Candice Martinez has labored 12-to-16-hour shifts at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for the closing month because the clinic confronted each its customary inflow of sufferers and the emerging selection of COVID-19 instances.
She’s paid about $15-an-hour to sanitize clinic rooms, and was once proud to be combating at the entrance line in opposition to the coronavirus.
But then, two weeks in the past, she began to come back down with signs.
First it was once a headache, Then a frame pain. Then a sore throat.
A check showed it. She had COVID-19, and he or she believes it took place whilst cleansing rooms.
Greg Kelley, president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, mentioned that is all too commonplace for union individuals like Martinez.
Now the union is difficult that hospices around the Chicago space supply danger pay and higher running prerequisites for the ones front-line staff who’re particularly inclined.
SEIU Healthcare has an possession stake in Sun-Times Media.
“Existing workplace policy and procedures has really made it hard for workers to follow CDC guidelines for limiting the spread of COVID19,” Kelley mentioned. “Workers are not being updated on current protocols.”
Other issues, Kelley mentioned, are “not having enough [personal protective equipment] under CDC guidelines or even knowing where supplies are.”
Martinez mentioned the one protecting equipment supplied are surgical mask and gloves; she didn’t have get right of entry to to any of the more-effective N95 respiration mask. Workers additionally aren’t warned if they’re coming into a room the place a COVID-19 affected person is being handled on account of possible privateness legislation violations, she mentioned.
An indication is positioned out of doors the room informing staff to take “droplet precautions” — the virus can unfold thru respiration droplets brought about from coughing — however infrequently the ones indicators are got rid of ahead of staff see them.
“Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we have gone to extraordinary lengths to maintain an environment that protects everyone,” mentioned Christopher King, spokesman for Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “We continue to follow the recommendations of the CDC for personal protection equipment and have been fortunate to date to secure sufficient personal protective equipment to do so.”
King didn’t touch upon whether or not the clinic would factor danger pay, however mentioned they’re “always open to discuss any issue or concern” the union has about protection.
Kelley needs hospitals to: pay staff time-and-a-half right through the pandemic; start temperature trying out everybody coming into and leaving the clinic; restrict visitation; supply two weeks paid day without work for the ones unwell; get right of entry to to COVID-19 trying out for all well being care staff.
“Service workers are just as important as anyone else who works in the hospital,” Kelley mentioned. “We believe that right now is a time for hospital workers and the hospital systems to work together.”
Wellington Thomas, an EMT at The Loretto Hospital, mentioned his clinic’s provide of N95 mask is dwindling they usually don’t have any massive mask for him to put on when interacting with COVID-19 sufferers.
“Aren’t we worth hazard pay?” Thomas mentioned. “Pay is being handed out to grocery store workers and other essential services, why aren’t we getting it?”
Loretto didn’t right away reply to a request for remark.
Some staff, like Kim Smith, a affected person care tech at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, mentioned she doesn’t really feel secure going to paintings anymore.
“Hospitals were once a safe haven and are now becoming a death trap,” Smith mentioned. “Nobody chose this field to lose their life, we chose this field to help and preserve life.”
Martinez is protecting her prime spirits prime regardless of the uncertainty of her analysis.
“I am not the greatest, but I am not as bad as other people,” she mentioned. “Every morning I’m waking up and realizing I still have symptoms and I am still sick with this and wondering if It is going to get worse or not.”