America’s teachers have successfully pushed back on unreasonable demands imposed on them during the Covid pandemic. While working conditions are certainly not ideal, teacher activism has made things safer for both teachers and students. I am not a healthcare worker, but in my view, nurses, doctors, and other hospital workers are being treated like doormats or worse in the politicized management of the pandemic, and it will continue until there is real pushback.
I realize that lives depend on hospital staff showing up for work. I would argue that the critical nature of their jobs is precisely what gives them leverage. Used wisely, their power could actually save many lives.
Those who refuse to wear masks or social distance clearly don’t care about the overwork and burnout of our frontline hospital workers. They don’t care whether hospitals have adequate PPE to protect their staff and patients. They don’t care if there are shortages of beds or enough nurses to staff the hospitals. And many Republican governors and leaders show a shameful politicized disregard as well, particularly a disregard for the physical and emotional toll on our hospital workers. We can’t do anything about the Trump minions who stubbornly and mindlessly take their cues from him. But I believe we can change the behavior of truculent Republican governors and other uncaring state and local leaders.
It seems to me that pre-planned, pre-announced call-in-sick days for a certain percentage of nurses, let’s say, could be very effective. If an intransigent governor knows days or weeks ahead of time that hospitals will be seriously understaffed on a given day/days, he or she will surely be moved to avert the crisis by changing Covid policies in advance. Hopefully, it would not be necessary to actually implement a call-in-sick day. Please note that I’m not suggesting that all nurses or nurse’s aides call in sick at the same time. If a governor or mayor decides to “call their bluff,” the risk would still be mitigated by careful planning of how many workers would take the “skip day”.
I welcome your constructive criticism and alternative suggestions to improve the lot of our beleaguered hospital professionals. I think we can all agree they deserve better.