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Nurses Say Persevering with Personnel Shortages Beset COVID Care Employees – CBS San Francisco

SAN JOSE (KPIX) – Two registered nurses working more than 100 miles apart claim they tried to warn hospital staff last year to prepare for the pandemic, but their warnings fell on deaf ears.

“I was actually the first nurse to have a COVID patient,” said Mawata Kamara, a registered nurse at San Leandro Hospital and a board member of the California Nurses Association. “There was no real trial. We had to call the state at the time and then the state told us that there was a low probability that we had to send this patient home. We weren’t prepared. It was torture as a nurse. “

Kamara said she remembered conversations about the need to hire and train more nurses.

“We saw how many people died in other countries,” she said. “Why did we feel like we would be immune to this experience.”

“What is the preparation, what is the plan,” said nurse Catherine Kennedy in Emperor Roseville.

Then patient after patient showed up and tested positive for COVID-19.

TIED TOGETHER: Backlash against healthcare workers is adding to the physical and emotional toll of the pandemic

It was then that Kennedy, president of the California Nurses Association’s president and member of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, saw the real test of how prepared – or unprepared – Kaiser was when dealing with a pandemic.

Both Kennedy and Kamara said they are not immune to the nationwide lack of personal protective equipment.

“The PSA has been locked up,” said Kamara. “And we had to deal with the N95 compared to no N95. We reused them. I have been a nurse since 2008. I know I’ve never heard of reuse. “

“They were never meant to be used and reused because you reused something years ago, you were disciplined for that,” Kennedy said. “Now suddenly it’s okay.”

She said some hospitals continue to handle PPE that is not readily available.

“It’s exhausting making sure you have everything you need, not having to look around and say, ‘Hey manager, I need this,’ instead of having it available to you right away,” said Kennedy . “For the administration, the hospital industry, it is important to understand that our life is important.”

More than a year and a half after the pandemic, the nurses said they are now facing a serious staff shortage that they think is as unsafe as the PPE issues.

“We had a nurse who did three people’s jobs,” said Kamara. “This is dangerous, this is dangerous. One person should not do the work of three people. “

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 3,607 health care workers, according to a database created by Guardian journalists. The CDC does not track these statistics.

Now registered nurses fear that with increasing COVID cases, working conditions will only worsen, they are grappling with a staff shortage and nurses are tired of the toll of the pandemic.

“I get these calls every day to pick up more hours,” said Kamara. “I’ve had a lot of conversations where nurses just don’t want to do it anymore, they don’t want to. It is too much.”

“Nurses are so frustrated they can do their two to three shifts a week and nothing more,” said Kennedy. “There are those who choose to retire early.”

Kamara said they now have to put people in hallways again and that there is talk of opening up more rooms to handle the recent surge. This time they are not only dealing with personnel problems, but also with patients who are more combative.

“We’re seeing an increase in volatile behavior, be it in the patient or in the visitor,” said Kennedy.

“I trust science and although people in your neighborhood may tell you differently, I see differently in the hospital,” said Kamara. “I’ve seen younger people who thought they would be fine and went out and came back, gave it to their grandma and now their grandma is dying. It breaks my heart that we have reached a point where there is so much suspicion about health care. “

Emperor Roseville said in a statement the hospital currently has no shortage of PPE and recognizes the work nurses have done over the past year and a half. San Leandro Hospital also issued a statement acknowledging the shortage of PPE at the start of the pandemic, as well as the current national shortage of nurses.

Both hospitals said they provided resources to health care workers, including mental health services.

But Kennedy and Kamara said they believe much of what happened last year could have been prevented.

“We think hospitals should have prepared better,” said Kamara. “We are the ones who take the blow while they call us heroes.”

“To make it clear to the employer that we don’t want to be heroes, we want to be able to go to our families, to our community, to go home,” said Kennedy.

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