Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citation please? I find this incredibly hard to believe.
The article literally mentions it. While it may not be a large stockpile, there’s ppe to be had.
1/2 a billion.
California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#32I can confirm the "used PPE" thing from personal experience. My partner (a nurse at a VA hospital) was given a Tupperware container with holes poked in the lid as "overnight storage" for her N95 mask and was asked to reuse it for up to a month at a time. As far as I know this is still ongoing. I know the cynical take is "you need to stop letting yourself be surprised / disappointed by this kind of thing" but we shoul…
> My coworkers from mainland China were concerned about our well-being and started shipping us KN95 masks
My partner’s friend with family in China did the same thing for us. His dad was getting chemo and they had their family send a couple boxes of KN95s over to help protect him. Depressing, given how much America looks like a failed state relative to the two countries pandemic response, but good that interpersonal relationships trump all the BS “new Cold War” rhetoric.
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#33This is a good example of why labor unions are important and necessary. A single nurse can be ignored because of the massive power imbalance between an individual and the management collective of a large organization. Nurses banding together to create their own collective creates a level playing field for negotiations.
The nurses in CA have been unionized for quite a while now. At the point that a strike is happening I’m not sure the union is having much success negotiating with the hospital over something that should be basic, obvious and mutually beneficial. One of the big complaints that people have about Unions (under US law) is that they do not really care so much about employee welfare as much as some specific set of bargaini…
You don't need to rework existing labor law for organized labor and employee ownership to coexist. ESOPs with unions were more popular prior to the Reagan era, but I don't believe they've been made illegal.
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
In defence of the OP, at risk of also getting downvoted :) I think what the OP is trying to say is that it is hard to imagine a career politician instituting such a program.
You mean, career politicians like the Bush administration, that stood up the Pandemic Response Team, that was subsequently dissolved by the Trump administration? That kind of career politician? Edit: Named the wrong admin, my memory was off.
Only the politicians we don't like are "career politicians", my friend. ;)
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#35This can easily be solved with a tiny bit of sense. The state of California has large stockpiles. Now would be the time to distribute some. EDIT: shows the state of Hacker News readership that this is downvoted when the article states this. Furthermore, here is a second source: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/07/22/governor-newsom-announces-... hitting the downvoted button because it offends their sensibility without rea…
Citation please? I find this incredibly hard to believe.
Didn’t read the article did you?
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#36I can confirm the "used PPE" thing from personal experience. My partner (a nurse at a VA hospital) was given a Tupperware container with holes poked in the lid as "overnight storage" for her N95 mask and was asked to reuse it for up to a month at a time. As far as I know this is still ongoing. I know the cynical take is "you need to stop letting yourself be surprised / disappointed by this kind of thing" but we shoul…
> a federally run hospital
I mean, of course it's going to be a hellhole.
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#37Nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers in the US are being taken advantage of right now and threatening a strike is one of the few ways they can maintain a balance of power in the system.
I support the strike and I hope the folks ignoring covid precautions understand there is a limited supply of goodwill and of people who can save your ass if you get a bad case.
Doctors arguably have it worse right now because due to how they're employed, a good number of them have no legal ability to unionize or engage in collective bargaining.
Average med school debt at graduation is roughly $200k. Now imagine you are a recent graduate from residency or medical school, and you have a comorbidity or risk factor for severe covid. Unless you have some outside funding source to pay your debt, you have no choice not to work, likely in a hospital that has little incentive to keep you safe.
Even ignoring tuition, there is a massive opportunity cost to training a doctor, and these are the folks we're relying on to keep us healthy for decades into the future. Situation's pretty shit. Least we could do is lock down until every healthcare worker has been vaccinated.
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#38I can confirm the "used PPE" thing from personal experience. My partner (a nurse at a VA hospital) was given a Tupperware container with holes poked in the lid as "overnight storage" for her N95 mask and was asked to reuse it for up to a month at a time. As far as I know this is still ongoing. I know the cynical take is "you need to stop letting yourself be surprised / disappointed by this kind of thing" but we shoul…
As an outsider this is basically exactly what I would expect to happen in US healthcare.
But this isn't happening everywhere in the US, just California...apparently "muh fifth largest economy!!!" can't spring for some masks.
Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#39I can confirm the "used PPE" thing from personal experience. My partner (a nurse at a VA hospital) was given a Tupperware container with holes poked in the lid as "overnight storage" for her N95 mask and was asked to reuse it for up to a month at a time. As far as I know this is still ongoing. I know the cynical take is "you need to stop letting yourself be surprised / disappointed by this kind of thing" but we shoul…
Especially since I (the general public) can get an N95 online. If companies aren't protecting their workers they're not trying hard enough.
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Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE
#40If I were a medical worker, and they gave me shit PPE and told me that I'm not allowed to use my own - I'd simply ignore them until I was fired.
It's gonna suck dying if I need to go to the hospital, but I don't blame the nurses at all for this