In response to state Rep. John Wiemann’s recent column (“Stop pitting nurses against hospitals during the pandemic“), I would like to point out Wiemann’s twisted logic on nurses’ demands for safe staffing levels, personal protective equipment (PPE), and other workplace protections and concerns, including concerns for patients.
The fact is that too many of our health care professionals are getting exposed to the virus, getting sick, and, sadly, some are succumbing to the illness that they acquired while on duty at the work. Nurses are absolutely right to protest the conditions that are too often directly lending toward further exposure for these frontline workers. While Wiemann would like for us to believe that these workers are protesting or striking instead of working, nothing could be further from the truth. Health care professionals continue to report for their shifts, every hour of every day of every week during the pandemic.
From V.A. hospitals to acute care facilities to nursing homes, this country has lost hundreds of nurses and other health care professionals, and thousands more have tested positive for this terrible virus. These are lives that could have been saved had the institutes that employed these health care workers taken the necessary actions for a safer workplace. How is the effort by nurses, their families, and their co-workers to educate the public on the facts somehow selfish or wrong? IT ISN’T!
Wiemann’s argument is twisted and baseless. Instead of trying to silence the voices of the very people who are saving lives all across Missouri and across the country, perhaps Wiemann should remain silent until he actually is ready to be a constructive legislator instead of just criticizing the heroes.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For up-to-date information on coronavirus, check with the CDC and DHSS.
Michael Louis is the president of the Missouri AFL-CIO.
