sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
posted with permission
hat tip Jason Gale
Hospitals Tell Doctors They’ll Be Fired If They Talk to Press
2020-03-31 13:23:47.721 GMT
By Olivia Carville, Emma Court and Kristen V. Brown
(Bloomberg) -- Hospitals are threatening to fire health-
care workers who publicize their working conditions during the
coronavirus pandemic -- and have in some cases followed through.
Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state,
said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given
an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what
he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing.
In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she
wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New
York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they
could be terminated if they talk to the media without
authorization.
“Hospitals are muzzling nurses and other health-care
workers in an attempt to preserve their image,” said Ruth
Schubert, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Nurses
Association. “It is outrageous.”
Hospitals have traditionally had strict media guidelines to
protect patient privacy, urging staff to talk with journalists
only through official public relations offices. But the pandemic
has ushered in a new era, Schubert said.
Health-care workers “must have the ability to tell the
public what is really going on inside the facilities where they
are caring for Covid-19 patients,” she said.
Bloomberg News wants to hear from health-care workers on
the front lines. Click here to tell us.
One reason is to prepare other nurses and doctors for the
looming onslaught of cases and encourage donations of much-
needed equipment, particularly the personal protective equipment
or PPE that protects them from being infected and in turn
infecting other patients as well as their families when they go
home.
In China, one of the earliest alarms about the mysterious
new illness was raised by a doctor in an online chatroom in late
December. He was reprimanded and forced to sign a police
statement that the post was illegal. He later contracted the
disease from a patient and died.
Joseph Sakran
@JosephSakran
It’s hard to come to grips with the fact that
#WhenCoronaVirusIsOver some of us in healthcare will not be
standing. And to think that is partially due to a lack of #PPE
is infuriating. #GetMePPE
Sent via Twitter for iPhone.
View original tweet.
“It is good and appropriate for health-care workers to be
able to express their own fears and concerns, especially when
expressing that might get them better protection,” said Glenn
Cohen, faculty director of Harvard Law School’s bioethics
center. It’s likely hospitals are trying to limit reputational
damage because “when health-care workers say they are not being
protected, the public gets very upset at the hospital system.”
Read more about PPE shortages:
* Dire Shortage Forces Hospital Staff to Make Do-It-Yourself
Masks
* America’s Hospitals Teeter on Frontlines of Coronavirus Battle
* White House Pays Underwear Makers to Churn Out Millions of
Masks
Doctors are a famously independent profession, where
individual medical judgment on what’s best for the patient is
prized over administrative dictates. That’s reared its head
during the Covid-19 outbreak, with many physicians, nurses and
other health-care workers taking to social media to express deep
concerns about the lack of protective gear or much-needed
patient-care equipment like respirators. Some posts have gone
viral and are being shared hundreds of thousands of times, often
tagged with #GetMePPE. Privacy laws prohibit disclosing specific
patient information, but they don’t bar discussing general
working conditions.
Ayrenne Adams, MD MPH@AyrenneAdamsMD
After examining a hypoxic woman in her 50s with no medical
problems who likely has COVID, I had to clean my single-use face
shield that I’ve worn the past three days with disinfectant used
to clean hospital beds since we ran out of sanitizing wipes
#GetMePPE
Sent via Twitter for iPhone.
View original tweet.
NYU Langone Health employees received a notice Friday from
Kathy Lewis, executive vice president of communications, saying
that anyone who talked to the media without authorization would
be “subject to disciplinary action, including termination.”
Jim Mandler, a spokesman for NYU Langone Health, said the
policy was to protect patient and staff confidentiality.
“Because information is constantly evolving, it is in the best
interest of our staff and the institution that only those with
the most updated information are permitted to address these
issues with the media.”
New York’s Montefiore Health System requires staff get
permission before speaking publicly, and sent a reminder in a
March 17 newsletter that all media requests “must be shared and
vetted” by the public relations department.
“Associates are not authorized to interact with reporters
or speak on behalf of the institution in any capacity, without
pre-approval,” according to the policy, which was seen by
Bloomberg News.
Lauri Mazurkiewicz, the Chicago nurse who was fired by
Northwestern Memorial Hospital after urging colleagues to wear
more protective equipment, has filed a wrongful termination
lawsuit.
“A lot of hospitals are lying to their workers and saying
that simple masks are sufficient and nurses are getting sick and
they are dying,” she said.
Mazurkiewicz, 46, has asthma and cares for her father, who
suffers from a respiratory disease. At 75, he’s in one of the
most at-risk groups of dying from the virus. “I didn’t want to
get infected because I’m not wearing the proper mask and then
spread it to my patients and my family,” she said.
A Northwestern Memorial Hospital spokesperson declined to
comment, citing the lawsuit. The hospital said in an emailed
statement that it “is committed to the safety of our employees.”
Cornelia Griggs@CorneliaLG
My babies are too young to read this now. And they’d barely
recognize me in my gear. But if they lose me to COVID I want
them to know Mommy tried really hard to do her job. #GetMePPE
#NYC
Sent via Twitter for iPhone.
View original tweet.
Charles Prosper, chief executive of PeaceHealth St. Joseph
Medical Center’s Northwest network where Lin worked in
Bellingham, said in an email that Lin was “publicly critical” of
the hospital’s readiness to deal with patients. Lin’s contract
is through TeamHealth, which said it’s seeking to find him new
work.
“Our oath is to do no harm,” Lin said. “I spoke out for
patient safety and as a result I got terminated.”
Not all hospitals are blocking staff from talking to the
press. New York’s Mount Sinai has been scheduling media
interviews for nurses, physicians and trainees to help the
public understand the severity of the crisis, a spokesperson
said in an emailed statement. The University of California San
Francisco Medical Center has gotten hundreds of such calls and
encouraged workers to talk to reporters.
Nisha Mehta is a 38-year radiologist from Charlotte, North
Carolina, who runs two Facebook groups for physicians with
around 70,000 members. She’s fielded numerous requests from
health-care workers hoping to get their stories into the public
arena.
“I’m hearing widespread stories from physicians across the
country and they are all saying: ‘We have these stories that we
think are important to get out, but we are being told by our
hospital systems that we are not allowed to speak to the press,
and if we do so there will be extreme consequences,” she said.
Many say they get daily emails urging them not to talk to
the media under any circumstances. “The public needs to hear
these stories and other physicians need to hear them to be
warned against what’s coming,” Mehta said. “It’s so important
that everyone understands how bad this is going to get.”
--With assistance from Riley Griffin.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Olivia Carville in New York at ocarville1@bloomberg.net;
Emma Court in New York at ecourt1@bloomberg.net;
Kristen V. Brown in San Francisco at kbrown340@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net
Heather Smith
hat tip Jason Gale
Hospitals Tell Doctors They’ll Be Fired If They Talk to Press
2020-03-31 13:23:47.721 GMT
By Olivia Carville, Emma Court and Kristen V. Brown
(Bloomberg) -- Hospitals are threatening to fire health-
care workers who publicize their working conditions during the
coronavirus pandemic -- and have in some cases followed through.
Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state,
said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given
an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what
he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing.
In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she
wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New
York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they
could be terminated if they talk to the media without
authorization.
“Hospitals are muzzling nurses and other health-care
workers in an attempt to preserve their image,” said Ruth
Schubert, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Nurses
Association. “It is outrageous.”
Hospitals have traditionally had strict media guidelines to
protect patient privacy, urging staff to talk with journalists
only through official public relations offices. But the pandemic
has ushered in a new era, Schubert said.
Health-care workers “must have the ability to tell the
public what is really going on inside the facilities where they
are caring for Covid-19 patients,” she said.
Bloomberg News wants to hear from health-care workers on
the front lines. Click here to tell us.
One reason is to prepare other nurses and doctors for the
looming onslaught of cases and encourage donations of much-
needed equipment, particularly the personal protective equipment
or PPE that protects them from being infected and in turn
infecting other patients as well as their families when they go
home.
In China, one of the earliest alarms about the mysterious
new illness was raised by a doctor in an online chatroom in late
December. He was reprimanded and forced to sign a police
statement that the post was illegal. He later contracted the
disease from a patient and died.
Joseph Sakran
@JosephSakran
It’s hard to come to grips with the fact that
#WhenCoronaVirusIsOver some of us in healthcare will not be
standing. And to think that is partially due to a lack of #PPE
is infuriating. #GetMePPE
Sent via Twitter for iPhone.
View original tweet.
“It is good and appropriate for health-care workers to be
able to express their own fears and concerns, especially when
expressing that might get them better protection,” said Glenn
Cohen, faculty director of Harvard Law School’s bioethics
center. It’s likely hospitals are trying to limit reputational
damage because “when health-care workers say they are not being
protected, the public gets very upset at the hospital system.”
Read more about PPE shortages:
* Dire Shortage Forces Hospital Staff to Make Do-It-Yourself
Masks
* America’s Hospitals Teeter on Frontlines of Coronavirus Battle
* White House Pays Underwear Makers to Churn Out Millions of
Masks
Doctors are a famously independent profession, where
individual medical judgment on what’s best for the patient is
prized over administrative dictates. That’s reared its head
during the Covid-19 outbreak, with many physicians, nurses and
other health-care workers taking to social media to express deep
concerns about the lack of protective gear or much-needed
patient-care equipment like respirators. Some posts have gone
viral and are being shared hundreds of thousands of times, often
tagged with #GetMePPE. Privacy laws prohibit disclosing specific
patient information, but they don’t bar discussing general
working conditions.
Ayrenne Adams, MD MPH@AyrenneAdamsMD
After examining a hypoxic woman in her 50s with no medical
problems who likely has COVID, I had to clean my single-use face
shield that I’ve worn the past three days with disinfectant used
to clean hospital beds since we ran out of sanitizing wipes
#GetMePPE
Sent via Twitter for iPhone.
View original tweet.
NYU Langone Health employees received a notice Friday from
Kathy Lewis, executive vice president of communications, saying
that anyone who talked to the media without authorization would
be “subject to disciplinary action, including termination.”
Jim Mandler, a spokesman for NYU Langone Health, said the
policy was to protect patient and staff confidentiality.
“Because information is constantly evolving, it is in the best
interest of our staff and the institution that only those with
the most updated information are permitted to address these
issues with the media.”
New York’s Montefiore Health System requires staff get
permission before speaking publicly, and sent a reminder in a
March 17 newsletter that all media requests “must be shared and
vetted” by the public relations department.
“Associates are not authorized to interact with reporters
or speak on behalf of the institution in any capacity, without
pre-approval,” according to the policy, which was seen by
Bloomberg News.
Lauri Mazurkiewicz, the Chicago nurse who was fired by
Northwestern Memorial Hospital after urging colleagues to wear
more protective equipment, has filed a wrongful termination
lawsuit.
“A lot of hospitals are lying to their workers and saying
that simple masks are sufficient and nurses are getting sick and
they are dying,” she said.
Mazurkiewicz, 46, has asthma and cares for her father, who
suffers from a respiratory disease. At 75, he’s in one of the
most at-risk groups of dying from the virus. “I didn’t want to
get infected because I’m not wearing the proper mask and then
spread it to my patients and my family,” she said.
A Northwestern Memorial Hospital spokesperson declined to
comment, citing the lawsuit. The hospital said in an emailed
statement that it “is committed to the safety of our employees.”
Cornelia Griggs@CorneliaLG
My babies are too young to read this now. And they’d barely
recognize me in my gear. But if they lose me to COVID I want
them to know Mommy tried really hard to do her job. #GetMePPE
#NYC
Sent via Twitter for iPhone.
View original tweet.
Charles Prosper, chief executive of PeaceHealth St. Joseph
Medical Center’s Northwest network where Lin worked in
Bellingham, said in an email that Lin was “publicly critical” of
the hospital’s readiness to deal with patients. Lin’s contract
is through TeamHealth, which said it’s seeking to find him new
work.
“Our oath is to do no harm,” Lin said. “I spoke out for
patient safety and as a result I got terminated.”
Not all hospitals are blocking staff from talking to the
press. New York’s Mount Sinai has been scheduling media
interviews for nurses, physicians and trainees to help the
public understand the severity of the crisis, a spokesperson
said in an emailed statement. The University of California San
Francisco Medical Center has gotten hundreds of such calls and
encouraged workers to talk to reporters.
Nisha Mehta is a 38-year radiologist from Charlotte, North
Carolina, who runs two Facebook groups for physicians with
around 70,000 members. She’s fielded numerous requests from
health-care workers hoping to get their stories into the public
arena.
“I’m hearing widespread stories from physicians across the
country and they are all saying: ‘We have these stories that we
think are important to get out, but we are being told by our
hospital systems that we are not allowed to speak to the press,
and if we do so there will be extreme consequences,” she said.
Many say they get daily emails urging them not to talk to
the media under any circumstances. “The public needs to hear
these stories and other physicians need to hear them to be
warned against what’s coming,” Mehta said. “It’s so important
that everyone understands how bad this is going to get.”
--With assistance from Riley Griffin.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Olivia Carville in New York at ocarville1@bloomberg.net;
Emma Court in New York at ecourt1@bloomberg.net;
Kristen V. Brown in San Francisco at kbrown340@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net
Heather Smith