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Law360 (April 22, 2020, 5:23 PM EDT ) A southern California hospital is letting 10 nurses return to work after they were put on leave for refusing to help treat COVID-19 patients over concerns about allegedly inadequate protective gear, according to an announcement Wednesday.
The National Nurses United and California Nurses Association unions said Providence Saint John's Health Center on Tuesday let the nurses back on the job. The unions said that while the hospital has agreed to give the nurses N95 respirators, the employees will still see a written warning placed on all their records.
"We are being disciplined for doing what was the right thing to do: protect the safety of our patients, our community and the nurses," Jack Cline, a registered nurse, said in a statement. "After our actions, the hospital changed its policy to provide N95 respirators to RNs taking care of COVID-19 patients, but somehow they are still trying to intimidate and retaliate against us for speaking out for the critical protective equipment that we need."
According to the unions, the nurses chose not to go into the hospital rooms of COVID-19 patients with just surgical masks on, noting that physicians have said that those surgical masks wouldn't do enough to protect the workers.
And while the nurses said they are back on the job, they still said they wanted additional measures to be taken, like the hospital expunging their disciplinary letters.
The unions said they were making a number of other demands, such as requesting that the hospital allow nurses to get workers' compensation for COVID-19 and asking for more clarity over the amount of personal protective equipment the hospital has.
The hospital, however, said in a statement to Law360 that the nurses were given personal protective equipment that was in line with federal and state guidelines.
Moreover, the hospital said that it told the nurses multiple times that they would be disciplined if they declined to help care for COVID-19 patients. On top of that, the hospital said that the nurses were being paid while they were on leave.
"We take this issue very seriously. This type of action, by any caregiver, requires investigation," the hospital said in a statement. "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our patients and caregivers. Nothing. Saint John's — along with most hospitals across the United States — has been issuing PPE in accordance with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and other expert guidelines since the pandemic began."
The unions' announcement came as the death toll continues to rise during the COVID-19 crisis, which has caused major disruptions throughout the economy and sent officials at all levels of government scrambling to respond.
By Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. had around 835,000 confirmed cases, while the number of deaths in the U.S. rose to nearly 46,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
--Editing by Abbie Sarfo.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
