Hospital workers call for hazard pay, more COVID testing
‘Hospitals that were once safe havens are becoming a death trap’
SEIU Healthcare Illinois Vice President Anne Igoe leads a news conference earlier this month pressing for more stringent standards for workers treating coronavirus patients. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
Hospital workers are calling for hazard pay and increased testing for COVID-19 as they labor on the “front lines” of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Service Employees International Union’s Healthcare Illinois held a news teleconference Tuesday in which hospital workers aside from doctors and nurses, such as technicians and housekeepers, said they feared for their health in the pandemic and that some have already become sick with COVID-19.
“Workers are working under hazardous conditions, and they deserve hazard pay,” said Greg Kelley, president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois. He suggested time and a half as a pay rate, adding that hospital workers should also be eligible for two weeks of paid sick leave.
“We have too often focused on doctors and nurses,” he added, while hospital support staff — equally essential to operations and almost equally at risk for infection — are “too often forgotten.”
Kelley said, “Doctors, nurses obviously are critical parts of the patient-care team, but we cannot forget about those low-wage service workers who somehow too often are forgotten in a normal work environment, but in this crisis are disregarded in a way that we just can’t as a society allow to continue, given how interconnected COVID-19 makes this for all of us.”
“Hospitals that were once a safe haven are becoming a death trap,” said Kim Smith, a patient technician at Northwestern Medicine. “People are afraid to come to work. They don’t feel safe.”
“We want to save lives,” said Wellington Thomas, an emergency-room technician at Loretto Hospital on Chicago’s West Side. “Are we worth the hazard pay for risking our lives to save others? To me, it’s a no-brainer.”
Candice Martinez, a housekeeper at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said she was working 12- to 16-hour shifts “to help with some of the shortage” in staffing when she came down with symptoms two weeks ago, including headache, body aches, and a sore throat. Two weeks later, the asthmatic has seen no improvement and has been isolated at home apart from her son.
“I’m not feeling the greatest,” she said. “But I’ve seen on the news that other people are way more critical.”
Northwestern Memorial Hospital housekeeper Candice Martinez was working 12- and 16-hour days when she came down with COVID-19.
Union hospital workers complained earlier in the month that they were not receiving sufficient materials to guard against infection — masks, gowns, face shields, and other devices commonly referred to as PPE, personal protective equipment — and that safety protocols were often unclear. Martinez said she was never equipped with N95 masks, but only the less-effective surgical masks, while she often cleaned rooms that weren’t clearly labeled whether they had been occupied by coronavirus patients.
“Our workers are afraid to go to work because safety protocols aren’t keeping them safe,” said Anne Igoe, vice president for hospitals at the union. “That is why we are calling for hazard pay. We are trying to keep ourselves safe, we are trying to keep our co-workers safe, we are trying to keep our community safe.”
Kelley called for hazard pay for all hospital workers, while Igoe pressed for all hospital workers to be routinely checked for temperature upon arriving at work, and for all hospital workers to be tested for COVID-19.
“We are hearing about this across the country,” she said. “Northwestern is the No. 1 hospital in the state. There should be no reason workers are being denied tests. … We need to get everyone who’s tested positive out of the hospital.”
Igoe added, “The standard for testing changes from day to day and week to week,” with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now suggesting that only workers showing symptoms should be tested. But Igoe said it was clear that infected workers showing no symptoms were spreading the disease.
“We need to get access to tests,” she said. “We need to get our workers tested.”
The union also repeated its call for two weeks of paid leave for hospital workers. Martinez, who said she makes just under $15 an hour, has been told she’s getting paid under workers’ compensation, “but that check hasn’t come.”
Martinez said she was anxious to begin every day to determine if her condition had worsened. “To be honest, I wasn’t given a lot of direction,” she said. Hospital staff told her to self-isolate and “continue taking your inhaler. There’s been no other direction than that.” She was told to “keep yourself quarantined and wait it out,” and to call 911 if she got worse.
“Our society, the hospital industry, needs to respect those workers and give them the regard that they are entitled to,” Kelley said. “Without them, we will all suffer.”
“We’re not asking for something that’s not a concern,” Smith said. “We’re asking for safety for ourselves, our friends, our community, and our co-workers. That’s it, so that we continue on to make sure that other people are safe.”