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Spencer Custodio and Brandon pho |
Months after raising their initial concerns in July, medical workers at the Fountain Valley Regional Hospital continue to push the hospital administration for more coronavirus testing and better protocols as a second wave hits Orange County.
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It started with staff protesting against working conditions at their facility during Orange County’s first wave of coronavirus in July.
Then came a critical condition audit of hospital administrators and procedures in September, followed by management’s wishes to implement better worker safety measures.
Now an employee is dead.
“COVID-19 had a terrible impact on my father,” Irene Santos said at a press conference outside the hospital Monday.
His father, Armando Rodriguez died earlier this month after battling the virus since late July and early August, Santos said.
She said her father lived with family members who tested positive for the virus.
“His superiors told him to come to work the next day,” Santos said.
But Tenet Healthcare, owner of the hospital, said management was following protocols.
“All employees at our hospital are temperature checked upon arrival, wear a mask during patient care and are required to notify employee health if they become symptomatic. They are not allowed to work in the hospital treating patients if they have symptoms of COVID-19, ”spokesman Todd Burke said in an email Monday.
Barbara Lewis, director of the hospital division of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, said there were currently seven medical workers at the Fountain Valley Regional Hospital in quarantine after being exposed to the virus by a patient who did not had not initially been tested for the virus.
She said the union, which represents many workers like the hospital’s radiology technicians and nursing assistants, is still fighting for automatic virus screening for newly admitted patients.
“They have to test people to keep the community safe,” she said.
Burke said they were following federal and state guidelines.
“We continue to follow guidelines issued by the California Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protect the health and safety of our patients and staff during this unprecedented pandemic, ”said Burke.
He also said there was a lot of protective gear.
“We can safely care for our patients with the supplies we currently have. To avoid potential exposure, all physicians, nurses and staff who treat patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 are required to wear the appropriate PPE, including N95 face masks and face shields or glasses, ” Burke said.
But Lewis, along with other workers, said the hospital should still automatically test new patients for the virus, even if state guidelines do not call for automatic testing.
“Patient screening is done based on symptoms and doctor’s order. If an employee is symptomatic, we follow CDC return-to-work guidelines for testing, ”said Burke.
Meanwhile, the virus has now killed 1,554 out of 71,116 confirmed cases.
The virus has already killed nearly three times as many people in Orange County as the flu on average each year.
For the background, Orange County has recorded an average of around 20,000 deaths per year since 2016, including 543 annual flu deaths, according to health data status.
According to these same statistics, cancer kills more than 4,600 people, heart disease kills more than 2,800, more than 1,400 die of Alzheimer’s disease and strokes kill more than 1,300 people.
OC is on track to surpass its annual death average with more than 19,000 deaths in October, according to state of health data.
Orange County also recorded 1,422 new cases on Monday, a number that has not been seen since peaks in summer cases that led to more than 700 people hospitalized at one point in July.
On Monday, 428 people were hospitalized, including 105 in intensive care units.
That’s a nearly 134% increase in hospitalizations since the start of the month, when 183 people were hospitalized.
Mailinh Nguyen, a certified nursing assistant at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, recalls being exposed to a COVID-19 positive patient with whom she sat for two consecutive 12-hour shifts and that a supervisor still has her said to get into work.
“I continued to work for two more nights,” Nguyen said, as speakers with placards and megaphones shouted over ambulances passing the hospital.
It was only after a meeting between management and the union of her hospital staff that she was sentenced to quarantine, she said. But at that time, she added that she had already been exposed to other people inside the facility.
After the state audit found problems with the hospital’s administrative decisions, Nguyen said some things have improved. But the risk premium and the tests for the personnel remained an exceptional demand.
That workers stay outside the hospital to protest, even after the state report, “scares us,” Nguyen said. “After all these problems, we still can’t get tested by the hospital, by our own employers. Now we have examples like Armando.
While talking to Voice of OC, a colleague interrupted her to tell her that the hospital was in “Code Beta 2”.
“Seriously?” Nguyen replied. When asked what that meant, she and the coworker replied, “We’re full, we have no room and we’re sending the staff home.”
“It’s all about the money,” Nguyen said, shaking his head. “It’s all about the money.”
Here are the latest figures on viruses in Orange County from county data:
Infections | Hospitalizations and Deaths | City by city data | Demography
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