Chicago Nurses Protest

Report on Cook County Hospital Nurses’ press conference 

By Neal Resnikoff

Nurses at Stroger Hospital (Cook County Hospital), including nurses working with covid-19 patients, held a press conference today after evening shift change. 

They exposed the criminal lack of protective gear, lack of screening of incoming staff each shift, and the lack of facilities to decontaminate after each shift. Nurses are thus forced to risk being contaminated, contaminating patients and other staff, and then bringing this home to possibly infect their families and the broader community. And they are retaliated against by management if they demand their rights. Nurses often buy and rig up protective gear, but this should not be how the hospital is run. 

The source of the problem goes beyond immediate management personnel and to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, whose President is Toni Preckwinkle, and to the federal government which has not prepared for a pandemic even though they had been warned for years that another was likely to come. 

A bus driver and el driver from the Chicago Amalgamated Transit Union also spoke at the press conference, about how they too do not have sufficient protective gear to guard against being contaminated by riders who may be carrying the covid-19 virus, even as some are making their way to Cook County Hospital or other hospitals. 

The organizer of this press conference was the local branch of the National Nurses United union. One of the organizers pointed out that because of the lack of protective gear, Chicago Cook County Hospital has the second greatest number of nurses infected with the covid-19, with only nurses at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in California having more. 

Some 15-20 people participated in the press conference, holding up a banner and signs which said #Protect Nurses. All Our Lives Depend on It. 

The press conference was attended by tv channels 7 and 32, Chicago Tribune, and others including Labor Express. We will see what, if anything, makes it to newscasts and news reports.

 

I think we should do all we can to support the needs of the nurses and transit workers. Protect nurses, patients, public health. What do you think? 

–Neal Resnikoff