Fired, Suspended, Retaliated Against. Nursing Home Workers Slam Industry’s PPE Crisis
Watch videos from our nursing home workers at our press conference below; and scroll down to read our workers profiled in the Chicago Sun-Times and USA Today!
(April 14, 2020, Chicago) – Nursing home workers who were recently fired or suspended held a video press conference today to sound the alarm about the industry’s retaliation against workers who are speaking out about the lack of PPE (personal protective equipment) and the industry’s refusal to stop short staffing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Workers also demanded paid sick time and an end to poverty wages as the Covid-19 crisis is devastating nursing homes across the country.
“I had to learn on social media that one of the residents that I cared for passed away from Covid-19… instead of being informed by my management.” — Tainika Somerville
“Management would rather have someone without skills or nursing home experience as long as they are quiet and do what they are told over a skilled worker with experience but who speaks up and is an advocate. The industry feels that leaders who hold them accountable are problematic,” — James Anthony Carter, CNA
“All departments are short staffed… [nursing home management] doesn’t respect us or the work we do. They don’t respect our time, they don’t respect us as human beings.” Latynia “Spice” Pickett
Nursing home workers said that the industry and owners have been more focused on their bottom line than in implementing staffing and safety protocols to keep residents and workers safe.
These workers spoke out for over 12,000 nursing home workers at over 100 facilities throughout the Chicago area who are currently demanding nursing home owners provide critical and life-saving PPE, end short staffing and poverty wages, and provide paid sick time off without punishment.
Read excerpts from the incredible press coverage highlighting our nursing home workers below:
Chicago Sun-Times: Nursing home workers claim they were fired over demands for more PPE
Three nursing home workers accused three Chicago-area facilities Tuesday afternoon for wrongfully firing or suspending them after they raised safety issues.
Greg Kelley, president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, said these were just a few instances during the COVID-19 pandemic where union members’ concerns were being disregarded by nursing home owners.
Kelley said workers at Bridgeview Health Care Center, Alden Lakeland and Berkeley Nursing & Rehab Center brought their concerns to management but were “disrespected, insulted and have in fact been fired” for raising issues with their employers.
“These employers seem to care more about maintaining their profits than the safety of those who live and work in their facility,” Kelley said.
SEIU Healthcare has an ownership stake in Sun-Times Media.
Tainika Somerville, a former Certified Nursing Assistant at Bridgeview Health Care Center, said she feared bringing the virus home to her eight kids because of her concerns over personal protective equipment.
“We don’t have the proper PPE here; we have asked over and over again if we can have the proper gear,” Somerville said. “I had to find out through social media that a resident that I took care of passed away from complications of COVID-19,” Somerville said.
Somerville said management at the facility never told her what happened to the resident nor recommended she be tested for the virus.
She and a group of other employees went to the nursing home’s administrator and asked for help. She now claims she was fired for doing so.
“It’s unfair for me to get fired, to get let go, for asking for things that’s rightfully ours,” Somerville said.
USA TODAY: At least 2,300 nursing homes have coronavirus cases — and the reality is likely much worse
About 1.3 million people live in the nation’s 15,600 nursing homes, according to the CDC.
And most nursing homes have had problems managing infections even when there is not a pandemic.
Seventy-five percent of U.S. nursing homes have been cited for failing to properly monitor and control infections in the past three years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal inspection data published last month.
USA TODAY quoted our SEIU Healthcare Illinois President Greg Kelley as well as two of our nursing home leaders:
“It’s a pretty tragic situation,” said Greg Kelley, president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana Missouri & Kansas, a union that more than 91,000 workers. “And I don’t believe that the public fully understands the depth of the challenge right now.”
The article went on to quote Francine Rico, a CNA and Vice-Chair of the Nursing Homes Division of our Union and Tainika Somerville:
Francine Rico, who has worked at Villa at Windsor Park for nearly 23 years, said she found out that a resident she had worked with had tested positive for COVID-19 from a co-worker who happened to take the call from the hospital where the resident was tested. She said her facility’s administrators were not upfront.
“I’m mad because we are frontline workers but we have been lied to,” she said. “They put our lives on the line. They have put our residents’ lives on the line.”
Tainika Somerville said she, too, worked directly with a resident who tested positive for COVID-19 and later died. She said no one at the Bridgeview Health Care Center in Illinois told her she’d been in contact with someone who had it. Instead, she learned about it through news articles and social media.
Somerville said the nursing home was understaffed and lacked communication even before the coronavirus. She said the facility also lacked sufficient personal protective equipment. (Somerville was fired April 2. She and the union said she was terminated for delivering a petition to the nursing home administrator and for speaking out about the delay in being notified about a COVID-19 case, a lack of protective gear and other issues).
“We were already in crisis before the pandemic hit,” Somerville said. “And since the pandemic hit, it has made it so much worse.”
Bridgeview Health Care Center did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment. In a statement on its website, the facility acknowledged it has had several residents test positive for COVID-19. It said it has implemented procedures to protect residents’ health.
In a statement provided to USA TODAY, Villa at Windsor Park acknowledged a delay in notifying staff that a resident had tested positive and said it has suspended the facility’s administrator while it conducts an investigation.
Kelley, the union president, said Rico and Somerville’s frustrations are shared by many workers the union represents.
“They feel like they’re in the dark, that they don’t really know if they’re in danger, if there are patients or residents there that are infected with COVID-19,” he said. “They feel unprepared very often as it relates to PPE. They feel that they are just, you know, being sort of led to slaughter without proper protection.”