While most health workers are vaccinated, many are still falling sick, exacerbating a staff shortage as more Americans seek hospital care
A chief clinical officer visits a Covid-19 patient at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. | Steven Senne/AP PhotoHospitals and long-term care facilities are so short staffed that many are compelling Covid-positive doctors and nurses to return to work, arguing that bringing back asymptomatic or even symptomatic staff is the only way they can keep their doors open amid a spike in hospitalizations.
“It’s comparable to March, April, May 2020. I have not seen health care workers as panicked as they are now since that time,” said Debbie White, a registered nurse and president of New Jersey’s largest health care union, HPAE, which opposes the CDC’s guidance. There are concerns for some of the most vulnerable patients, however, particularly those that don’t respond well to vaccines, like the immunocompromised and many cancer patients. Exposing vulnerable patients or older residents in long-term care facilities is dangerous because vaccines don’t necessarily protect those with compromised immune systems.
Jennifer Caldwell, an ICU nurse at the Research Medical Center in downtown Kansas City, Mo., said her hospital changed its guidance soon after the CDC’s update, allowing workers to return to work after five days provided they are asymptomatic. “It feels extremely irresponsible because you’re asking us to work sick,” she said. “The science shows that just because you're asymptomatic doesn’t mean that you’re not infectious.
In Washington state, hospitals are stretched but not to the point of allowing workers to stay on the job without isolating first for five days, the state’s secretary of health, Umair Shah, told POLITICO last week. But that could change, he said. Staffing is precarious. “The next several weeks will be very difficult for our state,” he said.
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