Nurses File Cal-OSHA Complaint After Hospital Refuses to Supply Swine Flu Masks for Units with Infecte...(s some rooms with infected patients lack...),Health

"Nurses will be on the front line of the fight against the H1N1 virus. However, if hospitals refuse to take basic safety steps to protect them from exposure, then infected RNs will be physically unable to continue working and may well become a vector for further infection. We nurses are shocked that hospital management is exposing us to this risk. It endangers every other person we come into contact with--our patients, our family, even management. This is not a time for finger-pointing, this is the time for Sutter Solano management to do their job and provide nurses with basic safety protections," said Sherry Ramsey, a RN at Sutter Solano.

Hospital management has claimed that there is a national shortage of the appropriate masks, a charge not verifiable in any way: neither the Centers for Disease Control nor the mask's manufacturers have reported any shortage, and other hospitals are able to provide their nurses with this safety protection.

"Sutter Health is an outlier with their refusal to protect nurses against the H1N1 virus. They must immediately move to safeguard these nurses, because we have a very busy and deadly flu season coming up, and hospitals must meet safety standards," said Deborah Burger, RN, a diabetes case management nurse and co-President of CNA/NNOC.

A study published in October 2009 by the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene found that face-seal leakage, such as that caused by the use of ill-fitting masks, is a key reason for mask failure, and allowing the penetration of viral particles. The article, "Performance of an N95 Filtering Facepiece Particulate Respirator and a Surgical Mask During Human Breathing: Two Pathways for Particle Penetration," by Sergey A
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