Survey of nurses says hospitals still unprepared for H1N1

By: Evan Sweeney August 27th, 2009

You may have already seen this story on Stressed Out Nurses.com, or HealthLeaders Media, but its one that may interest safety and IC coordinators in particular.

A number of hospitals are still underprepared for an H1N1 pandemic that could flood hospitals this flu season, according a survey conducted by California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC).

Over the last four weeks, CNA/NNOC elicited the opinion of nurses at 190 hospitals in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Below are a few of the statistics:

Nurses sited inadequate isolation of of H1N1 patients in a quarter of hospitals
Nurses at 15% of hospitals do not have access to the proper respirators and at 40% of the hospitals, nurses are expected to reuse respirators (although APIC has a position paper that lists priorities for reusing N95s in “dire” situations)
At 49% of facilities, nurses say they have not been adequately trained to identify and care for infected patients
Nurses at 65 percent of facilities report that they are not guaranteed adequate sick leave if they become ill while caring for a patient

In conjunction with the survey, CNA/NNOC released a list of demands for medical facilities including:

Adhere to strict infection control procedures involving isolation of infected patients
Provide appropriate PPE to workers and patients
Provide workers and visitors with up-to-date information and guidelines
Guarantee sick leave to HCWs who contract H1N1 at work without discipline for staying home
Do not reuse N95 respirators