April, 06 2020, 12:00am EDT
U.S. Nurses Unions: 'Our Members Are Dying. We Demand Protections Now!'
As COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket in the United States, unions representing 230,000 nurses across the country have joined forces to demand hospitals and the government act now to give nurses optimal personal protective equipment (PPE)--including N95 respirators or higher--a demand made more dire due to the fact that nurses are beginning to die of COVID-19.
WASHINGTON
As COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket in the United States, unions representing 230,000 nurses across the country have joined forces to demand hospitals and the government act now to give nurses optimal personal protective equipment (PPE)--including N95 respirators or higher--a demand made more dire due to the fact that nurses are beginning to die of COVID-19.
National Nurses United (comprising the California Nurses Association, the D.C. Nurses Association, the Minnesota Nurses Association, and National Nurses Organizing Committee-- including RNs in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Texas, West Virginia, and Veterans Affairs facilities in a dozen other states), along with the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) the Massachusetts Nurses Association, and the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) are calling on employers and the government to stop treating nurses as if their lives are expendable.
"Instead of answering the demands nurses have been making for months to their employers and elected officials to ensure safe workplaces to protect themselves, their patients, and the public, hospitals have instead sent nurses to the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic with bandanas, scarves, and trash bags as protection," said National Nurses United Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN. "Now at least 15 nurses across the country have tragically died. How many more nurses have to die before the richest country in the world will act to protect us, so we can protect our patients?"
After losing several nurses fighting this pandemic, NYSNA President Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, RN said, "We now bear the full brunt of a healthcare system rendered dysfunctional after years of relentless funding cuts for public health, while generating obscene profits for corporate interests. Life-protecting, life-saving equipment should have been assembled, trained practitioners should have been mobilized en masse, infrastructure should have been up and running, arming us with the tools to confront the most devastating crisis of our lifetime. And now, late to the game, we must demand that our government make herculean efforts to prevent its spread, to treat its victims, to protect caregivers who place themselves directly in harm's way, and to pull ourselves out of this abyss--or we are doomed."
"What nurses see is every hospital operating in haphazard fashion," said Minnesota Nurses Association Executive Director Rose Roach. "No hospital is using the same protocols. No hospital is maintaining the same procedures. They operate differently, day to day, and even shift to shift. For the lives of our nurses, for the lives of our patients, we have to provide the optimal protection for healthcare workers. We need the best. Not the second best. We can't afford these chances hospitals are taking with our lives."
"The health of our communities and the lives of our families, friends and neighbors depends on how we protect frontline nurses and healthcare workers right now," said Massachusetts Nurses Association President Donna Kelly-Williams, RN. "Unfortunately, there has been no consistent approach to fighting COVID-19 statewide that takes into account the safest protection standards for our frontline workers. The MNA has been the only organization driving a uniform standard of protection and support recommendations for healthcare workers in Massachusetts, as well as promoting the most effective means for hospitals to organize and provide the care to COVID-19 patients. In the absence of cohesion by the healthcare industry and the state's inability or unwillingness to enforce a consistent approach, the MNA uses a weekly letter to the governor, as well as pressure on the local level at MNA-represented healthcare facilities, to ensure an approach to this crisis that will keep nurses and frontline healthcare workers safely at the bedside and battling this pandemic."
"It is hard to fathom that nurses who have been exposed to patients with the virus are not tested for the virus, are being told to re-use protective gear, and are assigned care to COVID-19 patients without proper protections," said Edward Smith, Executive Director of the District of Columbia Nurses Association. "I find it blatantly irresponsible and a dangerous practice. We see what is happening in other areas of the nation when doctors and nurses contract the disease and are unable to care for patients. If an inordinate number of clinicians become ill in the District, it will result in a tremendous strain on D.C. hospitals to deliver care during this crisis, and we don't want that to occur in the nation's capital."
"Nurses and healthcare professionals are sacrificing greatly to meet the scale of the Covid-19 crisis, but we cannot be left to suffer the ultimate sacrifice, our lives," said PASNAP President Maureen May, RN. "Inaction has put us and our families at risk. Congress and the White House must act now and use the Defense Production Act to get personal protective equipment into our hospitals without further delay."
The unions are demanding employers stop hoarding the protective equipment they do have, keeping it under lock and key in management offices, away from the nurses and other health care workers who need it.
Employers must also adopt PPE standards based on science, not what the hospital industry wants, say nurses, emphasizing that hospital directives to reuse PPE and to downgrade levels of PPE which is antithetical to proper infection control and nurses' ability to slow the spread of the virus.
The country needs more PPE, say the unions, and they collectively demand President Trump use the Defense Production Act to act quickly to implement and increase the mass production of protective equipment for nurses and health care workers.
"Nurses are not willing to unnecessarily lose their lives, leaving their patients and families behind, just because employers and our government would not invest in the highest level of protections," the unions said in a joint statement. "Who will care for America's patients if the nurses are gone? Leaving health care workers to die is immoral, and frankly, criminal. We demand strong and immediate action--now, today--before one more nurse is lost."
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
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"Not a 'Joke.' It's Fascism": Trump Says He Wouldn't Mind Journalists Getting Shot
The Republican nominee also said during the same rally in Pennsylvania that he "shouldn't have left" the White House after losing the 2020 election.
Nov 04, 2024
During a rally on the final Sunday before the presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump told an audience gathered in the battleground state of Pennsylvania that he wouldn't mind if a gunman shot through the group of reporters covering the event.
After discussing the protective glass surrounding him, the former president said a would-be assassin "would have to shoot through the fake news" to get to him.
"I don't mind that so much," Trump said, drawing laughter and applause from his supporters. "I don't mind."
Watch:
Trump says he doesn't mind if someone shoots the press.
He repeatedly encourages violence against anyone who challenges his narrative.
That's what a dictator does — and Trump's Supreme Court gave him immunity to do whatever he wants if re-elected.
Votepic.twitter.com/W0dUWro2g9
— Melanie D'Arrigo (@DarrigoMelanie) November 3, 2024
Journalist Jeff Sharlet wrote in response that during his time covering "the fascism beat," he's met "men who've been itching for that encouragement, who openly fantasize about beating or killing reporters."
"It's not a joke," Sharlet wrote. "It's fascism."
Trump has long reveled in attacking members of the press, vilifying them as "the enemy of the people" and directing the ire of his supporters in their direction. Kash Patel, a Trump confidant who's expected to get a senior national security post if the former president wins Tuesday's election, suggested earlier this year that a second Trump administration would go after "the people in the media" with criminal or civil charges, underscoring the threat the Republican nominee poses to press freedom.
Facing backlash over Trump's latest attack on the press, his campaign issued an absurd statement claiming the former president was "actually looking out for [reporters'] welfare" by "stating that the media was in danger."
The Atlantic's Helen Lewis noted Sunday that "journalists are only some of the many 'enemies from within' whom Trump has name-checked at his rallies and on his favored social network, Truth Social."
Lewis continued:
He has suggested that Mark Zuckerberg should face "life in prison" if Facebook's moderation policies penalize right-wingers. He has suggested using the National Guard or the military against "radical-left lunatics" who disrupt the election. He believes people who criticize the Supreme Court "should be put in jail." A recent post on Truth Social stated that if he wins on Tuesday, Trump would hunt down "lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials" who had engaged in what he called "rampant Cheating and Skullduggery." Just last week, he fantasized in public about his Republican critic Liz Cheney facing gunfire, and he previously promoted a post calling for her to face a "televised military tribunal" for treason. In all, NPRfound more than 100 examples of Trump threatening to prosecute or persecute his opponents. One of his recent targets was this magazine.
Trump also said during Sunday's rally in Pennsylvania—where he and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are in a dead heat—that he "shouldn't have left" the White House after losing the 2020 election.
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'This Is What We're Funding': At Least 50 Children Killed in Israeli Strikes on Jabalia
"Civilians and civilian structures... must always be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law," said the head of UNICEF. "Yet these principles are being flouted over and over again."
Nov 03, 2024
The United Nations children's agency on Saturday condemned the Israel Defense Forces' "indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip" after at least 50 children were reportedly among those killed in attacks on Jabalia refugee camp in the northern part of the enclave.
Northern Gaza has been under siege since early October, when Israel resumed its attacks there, claiming it was targeting Hamas militants.
The current situation in northern Gaza has been called "apocalyptic" by leading humanitarian groups in recent days, with women and children making up the majority of the hundreds of people killed, and Israel imposing a near-total blockade on humanitarian aid.
Now, said Catherine Russell, executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), "the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and the ongoing bombardments."
In addition to the attacks on residential buildings this weekend in Jabalia, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that an attack on a healthcare center in Gaza City injured at least six people, including four children. The facility was participating in a polio vaccination drive, the second round of inoculations for children across Gaza.
"The Sheikh Radwan primary healthcare center in northern Gaza was struck today while parents were bringing their children to [get] the life-saving polio vaccination in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed to allow vaccination to proceed," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected. Ceasefire!"
Russell said the vehicle of a UNICEF staffer who was working on the vaccination campaign was attacked by "what we believe to be a quadcopter while driving through Jabalia—Elnazla."
The staff member was not injured, but Russell said "the attacks on Jabalia, the vaccination clinic, and the UNICEF staff member are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip."
"Civilians and civilian structures, including residential buildings, as well as humanitarian workers and their vehicles, must always be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law," said Russell. "Yet these principles are being flouted over and over again, leaving tens of thousands of children killed, injured, and deprived of essential services needed for survival."
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that at least 43,341 people have been killed in Gaza and at least 102,105 have been injured since Israel began its assault on the enclave more than a year ago in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. Women and children make up most of those killed, even as Israel and the United States, the largest international supporter of the IDF, have insisted the military is targeting Hamas.
"How can this inhumane situation be tolerated by the Biden-Harris administration?" asked Nina Lahoud, who has served as a special adviser and peacekeeping officer at the U.N., after the death toll among children in Jabalia over the weekend was reported. "How many more Palestinian kids need to die to take urgent action?"
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'It's the Abortion Ban': Final Iowa Poll Shows Harris Leading Trump 47-44
Rights advocates were energized by the "gold standard" poll results, but called on progressives to continue working to turn out voters.
Nov 03, 2024
Political observers expressed shock Saturday evening as the Des Moines Register released its final poll before Election Day showing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris leading Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump by three points.
Harris was supported by 47% of respondents compared to 44% who backed Trump.
The newspaper's poll, conducted by pollster J. Ann Selzer, is widely regarded as the "gold standard" survey of voters in the state and has been recognized as "predicting" numerous election results in Iowa and giving a potential preview of how candidates could fare in other Midwestern states with similar demographics.
Progressive advocates cautioned against placing too much faith in a single poll—even a widely respected one—and urged Harris supporters to continue canvassing, phone-banking, and taking action to defeat Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.
But the unexpected result in a state that hasn't been considered a swing state in this election, and was widely assumed to be a Trump-supporting state, led political observers to look closely at the poll, which showed significant shifts toward Harris among women.
Women aged 65 and older supported Harris over Trump, 63% to 28%, in the poll. Women who identify as political independents also backed her, 57% to 29%.
Overall, women in the state are backing Harris in the poll by a margin of 20 points, according to the survey.
Lyz Lenz, a journalist based in Iowa, said she believed the poll could be linked to one major change in Iowa since the last presidential election: the six-week abortion ban that took effect in July, banning abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. Similar abortion bans have been blamed for at least four deaths of pregnant women in Texas and Georgia.
"It's the abortion ban," said Lenz. "Women are furious."
Daniel Nichanian, editor-in-chief and founder of the digital magazine Bolts, said the result could preview losses for state Supreme Court justices who have upheld abortion bans in a number of states, including Iowa.
In 10 states this year, voters will make their voices heard on ballot initiatives regarding the right to abortion care. In traditionally red states including Kansas and Kentucky since Roe was overturned, people have voted to protect the right to obtain an abortion.
"It's the Dobbs election," said Helaine Olen of the American Economic Liberties Project. "The Iowa poll is just the latest proof."
Selzer herself told the BBC that many respondents talked about abortion rights.
"The people who say they're supporting Kamala Harris, the issue they say they're thinking about most is democracy, about half of them saying that's the most important thing," she said. "But then half of that, about 25% roughly, say abortion. And Iowa has one of the strictest abortion laws in place... and that may well have played a part in this."
Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, said it would be "foolish to dismiss [Selzer's] poll," but cautioned election watchers against abandoning "all of [their] prior views about the state of the race."
Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to President Barack Obama and co-host of "Pod Save America," said one possible interpretation among several is that "Harris isn't really winning Iowa but the poll is capturing late-stage momentum that bodes well for Wisconsin, Michigan, [and] Pennsylvania."
Advocacy group Indivisible on Sunday morning advised supporters to "send this Iowa poll to all your group chats. Then, sign up to talk to some voters. With your help, we're going to win this thing in two days."
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