David Joel Perea called from Maine, Vermont, Minnesota and finally Nevada, with the same request: “Mom, can you send tamales?” Dominga Perea sent them overnight.
That’s how he knew he was his 35-year-old son.
The traveling nurse had a “tremendous painting ethic” and worked 80 hours a week, her brother Daniel said.
But when Perea took on a task at Lakeside Health
During Perea’s stay, nearly one-fifth of Lakeside citizens were inflamed with COVID-19, according to state physical fitness records. “Lakeside’s most sensible precedence is the protection of those who live and paint in our facilities,” said one spokesman.
When her son did not respond to his message on April 6, Dominga knew something wrong: Perea had COVID-19. He died a few days later.
As COVID-19 increases across the country, physical care systems continue to suffer critical shortages, especially among non-doctors, such as nurses, radiology technicians and respiratory therapists.
To rebuild their ranks, the institutions leaned on “travellers” like Perea. Staff agencies have deployed tens of thousands of people nationwide since the March epidemics in the Northeast.
In the past, the virus is spreading in rural areas, i. e. in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, with limited medical infrastructure.
Rural hospitals relied heavily on cell phone nurses to fill staff shortages that existed even before the pandemic, said Tim Blasl, president of the North Dakota Hospital Association. hospitals are willing to invest in the care of other people in North Dakota. “
The arrangement poses dangers for travelers and their patients. Ping-pong staff between overcrowded and neglected cities can also introduce infections. As entrepreneurs, travelers revel in tensions that their full-time colleagues don’t feel. Frequently hired through hiring agencies founded thousands of miles away, possibly they would find the most likely running in crisis without a lawyer or security team good enough.
In 2020, the benefits of his paintings (freedom and flexibility) were overshadowed by treacherous conditions. Now the ranks of travelers are shrinking: the paintings are exhausting, fatal and dangerous. Thousands of top fitness personnel have the virus and many have died. , according to reports from KHN and The Guardian.
On April 17, Lois Twum, a 23-year-old travel nurse from New Orleans, one of four passengers on a flight to John F airport. Kennedy of New York.
When the self-styled “adrenaline junkie” she described came for her first shift at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, she said, she was assigned to four patients in a COVID-19 unit. (Intensive care nurses regularly care for two or three patients. ) Because these “free fall” patients required resuscitation and intubation, “there was virtually no one to help,” Twum said, because “everyone’s patient was critical. “The hospital did not respond to requests for comments on race situations and the remedy of travelers.
Meanwhile, when hospital workers became ill, quit smoking, or were fired due to budget cuts, travelers took over and were redistributed, Twum said, assigning more patients and the sickest.
“It’s like we’ve been parachuted into Iraq,” Twum said. “Travellers, we had the worst. “
On social media and messaging groups, traveller recruiters post photos of sunny horizons or coastlines with dollar symptoms and pay two to three times more than nurses. They promise signing bonuses, move-in bonuses, and sponsorship bonuses. They talk, ask questions about travelers’ families, and restaurants in new cities.
But when it comes to dealing with problems, “these other people can just disappear from you,” said Anna Skinner, a respiratory therapist who has traveled for more than a decade. “They’re not your friends. “
Stuck between hospitals where they report for paintings and remote staffing agencies, their protections are unclear.
For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which offers protective devices, is the agency’s duty, but travelers who have spoken to KHN have stated that agencies rarely distribute them.
Perea’s circle of relatives said they didn’t think David had the PPE good enough. Your employer stated that it is the duty of the nursing home to provide it. “It’s up to each of our clients to provide PPE to our staff while conducting missions through MAS,” said Sara Moore, spokesperson for Perea’s agency, MAS Medical Staffing.
Sometimes travelers are assigned to emergency rooms or extensive care sets with which they have little experience. Skinner, a pediatric specialist, said he landed on intensive adult care sets when he moved to the University of Miami’s fitness care formula in April. He gained hora. de orientation, he said, but “nothing can have prepared me for what I had to do. “
For five weeks, he said, he intubed one patient after another; they sucked blood into patients’ lungs and out of their noses and mouths; and cared for dismayed and frightened families. Under stress, Skinner said he couldn’t sleep and lost weight. The hospital did not respond to requests for feedback on travellers’ career situations.
Travellers face “incredibly onerous” barriers to overtime, sick leave, or reimbursement of employees they are entitled to under the Fair Labor Standards Act, said Nathan Piller, a lawyer for Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky, a labor and commercial litigation firm.
Even the number of hours they can depend on the paintings is out of their control, Skinner said. Contracts reviewed through KHN allow travelers to paint an explained amount of hours, but only a fraction of the hours are guaranteed and will need to be approved. through on-site managers. Guaranteed hours can be paid at rates that soar around the minimum wage and may require continuous vacations, which are not uniformly recognized.
The conditions would possibly be “changed from time to time”, according to the contract.
In 2018, AMN Healthcare, one of the largest nursing agencies in the country, agreed to a $20 million settlement for wage violations involving approximately $9,000. The violations “don’t seem unusual in the industry,” said Piller, who worked on the deal.
Travelers, Skinner said, want to present their case to the managers they just met, and “complaining is not an option. “
KHN reviewed nursing contracts issued through Aya Healthcare, a primary staff agency, and found that any litigation: claims for unjustified dismissal; accusations of discrimination, harassment or retaliation; Wage claims and claims for violations of federal, state or other laws or regulations must be resolved out of court, by arbitration.
Officials from the International Union of Service Employees, the American Nurses Association and the National Association of United Nurses said their constituents had been suspended or barred from roving worker agencies for speaking to the media, posting on social media or express considerations about unfair practices.
Matthew Wall, a long-time itinerant nurse, knows that very well. In July, two days after starting assignment at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, Wall told hospital directors about “undeniably dangerous” situations for him and patients, adding an insufficient PPE, long days and the highest proportion of patients-staff
Instead of addressing his concerns, wall, the hospital, which is under federal investigation for protection issues in the office after the death of another COVID-19 itinerant nurse in mid-March, canceled his contract. “Travellers are treated like dog food. ” Wall said. “The moment you’re a liability, they get rid of you. “
“We continue to strictly comply with the rules of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which are related to our patient care and protection practices for all,” said John Manasso, a hospital spokesman, who declined to comment on Wall’s case. .
Some see an option. ” We all know that if it wasn’t for us, those patients wouldn’t have anyone,” Twum said, “but seeing others in poor health from left to right makes one wonder if he values my life?”
Skinner, for his part, took up a job as a nurse in Aspen, Colorado. After ending his existing contract in New Orleans, Wall plans a break in the infirmary.
It’s like we’ve been parachuted into Iraq.
Dominga Perea nevertheless won a text on the night of April 6: “Don’t be scared, Mom, I have COVID.
“Pray for me. “
He saw David on FaceTime at Easter. ” He even had trouble eating mashed potatoes,” he said, “because I couldn’t breathe. “The next morning, he took a ventilator and never woke up.
Months later, Lakeside had not filled Perea’s position. “The ideal candidate will have to be a concerned user who is committed to providing high-quality care,” states the to-do list, and “capable of responding to emergencies when necessary. “
Matt Volz, editor-in-chief of KHN Mountain States, contributed to the report.
This article was reprinted khn. org with the permission of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan fitness policy studies organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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