CORONAVIRUS

Augusta VA nurses demand better protection, info sharing on COVID-19

Tom Corwin
tcorwin@augustachronicle.com
One of the protesters outside the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center to urge Congress to pass the HEROES Act, which would require the U.S. produce personal protective equipment needed during the pandemic in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday afternoon, August 5, 2020.

Standing in the hot sun Wednesday outside Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, longtime nurse Irma Westmoreland sounds a familiar but still worrisome refrain.

“Although we have an increased number of personnel protective equipment items, we are still reusing masks and don’t have enough of other respirators,“ said Westmoreland, vice president of National Nurses United, a nationwide union of registered nurses.

The rally outside the Augusta VA was one of 200 across the country by nurses to ask for safer working conditions and to urge the U.S. Senate to pass the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act or HEROES Act.

The Augusta VA administration released a statement saying it monitors supply levels daily “to make sure we have adequate (personal protective equipment) for the number and types of patients we are seeing” and can get equipment from other VA facilities if it drops too low.

The administration said it is protecting staff and has had less than 2% of its workforce infected, compared to 4.4% at the University of Washington facilities or other large urban medical centers. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs listed three staff as active COVID-19 cases and 17 employees who were infected but recovered.

Those numbers were news to Westmoreland and the rest of the nurses.

“They refused to give us the number,” she said. “We have asked to be notified. The only way we know is if the nurses themselves tell us, so the VA does not tell us about the COVID staff that are positive or patients.”

And that could have consequences, Westmoreland said. Last week, a patient who had surgery had his test later come back positive, she said.

“So all of the (operating room) was exposed, the Ambulatory Surgery area was exposed but they did not notify those people” in a timely manner, Westmoreland said. “If they would just work with us, we would make sure nurses got in contact with them, we would make sure they got what they needed. It’s just sad that they won’t do that. They are angry that we are out here.”

Part of the HEROES Act would require President Trump to use the Defense Production Act of 1950 to work with domestic manufacturers on creating adequate supplies of crucial equipment like PPE, and that would allow the country to plan ahead, she said. The Augusta VA administration needs to make a similar shift in thinking, Westmoreland said.

Augusta VA maintains in its statement it is adhering to the “contingency capacity” guidelines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued for health centers. But Westmoreland said those were issued for facilities facing a shortage of equipment or a high volume of patients, where the Augusta VA has never reached its COVID-19 unit capacity and fluctuates between two and eight of those patients most of the time.

“We are not in a surge in Augusta, we are not in a critical shortage, so why are the nurses continuing to be told they have to reuse their masks?” she asked.

VP of National Nurses United and longtime nurse at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, Irma Westmoreland, left, speaks during a nurse's protest outside the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday afternoon, August 5, 2020.