Friend,

We’re continuing to push for an aggressive federal response to the COVID-19 outbreak. As we work on the next stimulus, I want to focus all of our attention right now on saving the lives of healthcare workers.

The AFT is the second-largest nurses union in the United States, and our nurses and other healthcare members are on the frontlines of this pandemic and asking for our help. Members across the country are telling me they’re running out of personal protective equipment (PPE). If nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, hospital techs and anyone else in the hospital run out of this equipment, they will still care for patients—which means many of them will get sick and die. Healthcare workers have taken to social media calling for help using the hashtag #GetUsPPE.

Donna Phillips, a nurse in Alaska, just started this petition calling for our help.

Donna lays out four key things that will help save the lives of healthcare workers nationwide:

• The federal government has a stockpile of PPE but has only released 10 percent of the supply. This is what the stockpile is for; why is the government hoarding PPE and risking lives across the country?
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps watering down standards for healthcare workers because of the lack of PPE. Earlier this week, the CDC even told them to use bandanas as masks. The CDC must stop watering down the guidance.
• President Trump and the federal government can and should immediately ramp up production of PPE.
• All healthcare workers should have free, immediate access to COVID-19 tests.

Our nation’s healthcare heroes need to be free from anxiety. They are distraught about treating infected patients and then taking the virus home to their children or elderly parents; and they worry about patients who could come to the hospital without the coronavirus and leave with it. In caring for others, we must care for those on the frontlines.

Nurses have reached out to us to tell their horror stories. Some are making homemade masks to treat patients who tested positive for the coronavirus, because their hospitals have either run out of N95 respirators or they didn’t make the ration cut. Asking nurses to use bandanas or scarves rather than deploying every asset of the federal government to help them is immoral and dangerous.  

COVID-19 has shined a light on the crumbling healthcare infrastructure in the U.S., following years of cuts exacerbated by a president who can’t lead in times of crisis. Trump calls himself a wartime president, but our hospitals are ill-equipped to fight this pandemic—and our frontline nurses and healthcare professionals are the ones on the firing line.

I’m so angry: The president was warned that a pandemic was coming, and he did nothing. I’m angry that the Department of Health and Human Services ran simulations last year warning about this. I’m angry because national security officials warned him in January. I’m angry that the president continues to downplay this crisis. And I’m angry that he’s hoarding the PPE stockpiles and has yet to ramp up production of new personal protective equipment.

President Trump and his administration are failing healthcare workers right now. That’s why we must pressure the administration to do the right thing.

Will you join me in signing Donna’s petition? This is one tangible thing we can do to save healthcare workers’ lives.

In unity,

Randi Weingarten