Around 18,000 nurses went on strike in California Tuesday regarding issues on patient care, including lack of protection and equipment for the nurses who are tasked to care for Ebola patients.
Charles Idelson, the spokesman for the National Nurses United said, as quoted by Reuters, "Inadequate preparedness for Ebola symbolizes the erosion of patient care standards generally. We have a lot of patient care issues that we have presented to them that they have stonewalled and ignored."
The strike came a day before the planned wide-scale protest set to take place on Wednesday in the District of Columbia and 15 states. It will involve 100,000 nurses, including those who marched in California. Idelson said that most of those who will join the protest will not walk out on the job, but will hold vigils instead.
According to the report, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already ordered $2.7 million-worth of personal protective equipment. However, the agency admitted that it is a limited supply and is meant to meet the hospitals' short-term needs.
Still the union says that hospitals still lack suits that would protect caregivers from being exposed to Ebola, as well as air purifying respirators.
The strike in California is reportedly targeted primarily toward Kaiser Pemanente, the operator of a number of hospitals and clinics in the northern part of the state, including Roseville, Sacramento, and south Sacramento. The operator reportedly said earlier that the union is just using the Ebola issue to justify their other demands.
"The union is in contact negotiations with the hospitals they are striking. They are using Ebola as a ruse," Jan Emerson-Shea, the California Hospital Association spokeswoman, said Monday.
Currently, there are no reported Ebola cases in the U.S. although several have been treated for the disease. Apart from Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian who died of the virus, the other people known to have contracted the disease include nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinzon, and physician Craig Spencer, all of whom were later declared Ebola-free.
