Hospital Suspends Nurse Who Gave Protective Supplies to Colleagues
She raised more than $12,000 to buy and distribute protective gear for her colleagues, who say they felt inadequately protected against COVID-19. How a confrontation in one of the nation’s Coronavirus hotspots illustrates a troubling national trend.
Olga Matievskaya and her fellow intensive care nurses at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey were so desperate for gowns and masks to protect themselves from the coronavirus that they turned to the online fundraising site GoFundMe to raise money.
The donations flowed in — more than $12,000 — and Matievskaya used some of them to buy about 500 masks, 4,000 shoe covers and 150 jumpsuits. She and her colleagues at the hospital celebrated protecting themselves and their patients from the spread of the virus.
But rather than thanking the staff, hospital administrators on Saturday suspended Matievskaya for distributing “unauthorized” protective gear.
Across the country, front-line medical providers and hospital administrators are butting heads about precautions against the coronavirus pandemic. Clinicians are being told to reuse or go without necessary supplies even when treating patients infected with COVID-19. That goes against the way they’ve been trained. Some doctors and nurses now say they are being instructed not to speak to journalists and disciplined for doing so or taking action to protect themselves.
Matievskaya spoke to ProPublica last week about the fundraising campaign. She said she had been able to purchase most of what the nurses needed on eBay. She did not criticize her administrators, and after her suspension she declined to comment. But four other Newark Beth Israel nurses spoke to ProPublica on the condition of anonymity about the dire shortage of gear.
All four said their administration has failed to provide the supplies they need to protect themselves and patients. Two of them work in the intensive care unit, which houses the sickest patients. The other two work in other areas of the hospital. They said Matievskaya showed leadership to keep people safe where their hospital administration has not. “There was no information distributed” about not being allowed to purchase supplies for others on staff, one of the nurses told ProPublica.
The hospital told ProPublica in a statement that Matievskaya’s suspension ended Monday. “No employee is allowed to distribute unauthorized medical supplies within the hospital,” the statement said. “The nurse in question was temporarily suspended for inappropriately distributing unauthorized medical supplies, against this policy.”
The hospital said it ensures clinicians have the supplies they need by following guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for reusing gear. “We are working 24-hours a day, 7-days a week to ensure that the appropriate PPE gets to the right staff, at the right time,” the hospital said in its statement.
It did not answer questions about what would become of the supplies purchased through the campaign or whether other nurses who participated in the fundraising might be subject to discipline.
ProPublica
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