Health care professionals who speak out about their working conditions during the coronavirus outbreak are being threatened with termination by their employers, and some have already followed through, according to a report from Bloomberg.
"Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing," Bloomberg reports. "In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization."
&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2020-03-31%2Fhospitals-tell-doctors-they-ll-be-fired-if-they-talk-to-pressHospitals have always had strict guidelines when it comes to what employees can say to the media, but according to Ruth Schubert, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Nurses Association, the pandemic has ushered in a new era.
“Hospitals are muzzling nurses and other health-care workers in an attempt to preserve their image,” Schubert told Bloomberg. “It is outrageous.”
Health-care workers “must have the ability to tell the public what is really going on inside the facilities where they are caring for Covid-19 patients,” she added.
According to Glenn Cohen, faculty director of Harvard Law School’s bioethics center, it's a good thing for health-care workers to be able to express their frustrations "especially when expressing that might get them better protection."
Read the full report over at Bloomberg.
