Novel Virus, Old Story: Government Failings Put Healthcare Workers at Risk
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- Published on Tuesday, 26 May 2020 03:54
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2104 ... May 26, 2020
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Novel Virus, Old Story: Government Failings Put Healthcare Workers at Risk
Jane E. McArthur, Margaret M. Keith and James T. Brophy
An Ontario nurse with COVID-19 is terrified she will infect her young child. A COVID-19 screener in a small urban hospital isn’t provided with personal protective equipment (PPE) as she undertakes nasopharyngeal swabbing of suspected cases. A personal support worker (PSW) in a long-term care (LTC) facility sits in her car in tears before starting her shift, knowing that neither she nor the residents she cares for are being adequately protected.
The health crisis unfolding around the globe with the arrival of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has already had monumental impacts. News media report the pandemic is an unprecedented event. However, casting this crisis as exceptional narrows the focus. While the COVID-19 virus is unprecedented in its transmissibility, the lack of preparedness and inadequate protection for healthcare workers (HCWs) is an old story. If we look through the lens of worker protection, the COVID-19 pandemic is neither novel nor unforeseen. In many ways,... it is an escalation of the ongoing failure of health and safety regulatory oversight. It also underscores the chronic underfunding and increasing privatization of the healthcare sector. These problems are aptly illustrated in Ontario, where bed shortages, wait times, and understaffing plague the system. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reported in 2019 that Ontario -- tied for last place with Mexico -- had fewer hospital beds per capita than any of the OECD countries.
The International Council of Nurses reports thousands of nurses, doctors, and other HCWs have been infected in the course of their work, and some have died. Exposed HCWs of all ages and conditions are at risk. When viewed through the experiences of those on the front lines, the coronavirus response has been a series of failures: failure to apply the precautionary principle, which is fundamental to public health, failure to provide proper protections for workers, failure to implement recommendations to improve worker health and safety, and failure to place human health before the economy. The lessons of the past are crucial to understanding what is happening now.